Page 16102
1 Tuesday, 17 February 2009
2 [Open session]
3 [The accused entered court]
4 [The witness entered court]
5 --- Upon commencing at 9.06 a.m.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Good morning to everyone.
7 Mr. Registrar, would you please call the case.
8 THE REGISTRAR: Good morning, Your Honours. Good morning to
9 everyone in the courtroom. This is case number IT-06-90-T, The
10 Prosecutor versus Ante Gotovina, et al.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.
12 Good morning, Mr. Puhovski. I would like to remind you that
13 you're still bound by the solemn declaration that you have given at the
14 beginning of your testimony. And Mr. Misetic will now continue his you
15 may proceed.
16 MR. MISETIC: Thank you, Mr. President.
17 WITNESS: ZARKO PUHOVSKI [Resumed]
18 [Witness answered through interpreter]
19 Cross-examination by Mr. Misetic: [Continued]
20 Q. Good morning again, Professor.
21 A. Good morning.
22 Q. I would like to start off with a topic and show you a video first
23 to address another issue for which you may have some knowledge.
24 MR. MISETIC: The video, Mr. Registrar, is 1D67-0211.
25 Q. And professor you will notice this is a television interview that
Page 16103
1 you gave to the Croatian state television programme, Sundays at 2.
2 [Videotape played]
3 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover]
4 "Stankovic: Now that you have mentioned this Veritas, for many
5 Croatian it is an enigma. What is Veritas.
6 "Zarko Puhovski: Basically Veritas is a non-governmental
7 organisation in Serbia
8 called the Republic of Serbian Krajina as well as some younger
9 individuals that have joined as well. The ambition of Veritas is to
10 provide a complex overview of all the Serb victims in the wars from 1991
11 to 1995, that is that they have even expanded this further on to 1999 in
12 Kosovo, et cetera, to the bombing, and furthermore, according to its own
13 opinion, it provides objective facts regarding these victims. On a
14 number of occasions when faced with their findings, we determined that
15 parts of these findings were incorrect. And unfortunately, part of these
16 incorrect findings influenced the Prosecution in of The Hague Tribunal
17 for reasons that I'm not able to comment upon, as I simply don't know
18 them. Not in order to be secretive here but because I don't know why
19 this came to be, why they did this. We warned those who wished to listen
20 to us when they wished to listen. They would always listen to us
21 politely and then proceed according to their wishes.
22 Let me return to what I was saying earlier. When we talk about
23 surprises, I'm not saying that I was looking over Ms. Del Ponte's
24 shoulder, but I think they possess certain information that they did not
25 use, and it seems unbelievable to me that they wouldn't use these facts.
Page 16104
1 The Defence has information as well. The issue, of course, is to what
2 extent will the Defence be able to sufficiently organise itself? Will it
3 have enough time? And will it, I would dare say, fall into the pressure
4 that is being exerted to join the Gotovina, Cermak, Markac cases
5 together, or will it see that it would perhaps be better to separate
6 these cases?"
7 MR. MISETIC:
8 Q. Professor, on that video it seems that you have some reservations
9 it Veritas. And I wanted to just seek your comments as to whether you
10 indeed have reservations about them and what the basis of your
11 reservations are.
12 A. My reservations, and this is something that the Helsinki
13 Committee referred to in two of its statements, therefore, is not my
14 reservations alone. Has to do with three elements. First the morale
15 integrity aspect. The leaders of Veritas like Savo Strbac were
16 proponents of a regime which in our view constituted a denial of human
17 rights.
18 Secondly, because the organisation had dealt with a very
19 selective process. In other words it selected the victims along ethnic
20 lines. Of course, it is important to determine how many victims there
21 were on individual sides, but there has to be an objective approach.
22 Thirdly, we were sometimes in a situation where our colleagues in
23 the field were able to ascertain that the data they had published was
24 simply not true. In some of our statements, made by, for instance,
25 colleague Hellebrandt and colleague Gazivoda, we went public with this in
Page 16105
1 2002, unless I'm mistaken.
2 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I ask that the video be marked, and
3 I tender it into evidence.
4 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1322, Your Honours.
7 JUDGE ORIE: D1322 is admitted into evidence.
8 MR. MISETIC: Mr. Registrar, if we could have on the screen now
9 1D67-0365.
10 Q. Mr. Puhovski, you recall from yesterday that I asked you to keep
11 in mind one of the names that -- two of the names that Mr. Pilsel had
12 given to the Office of the Prosecutor, Carlos Zvonimir. And I'd like to
13 show you a document of the Croatian police at the moment.
14 Now, this is a police -- this is an Official Note, and in it you
15 will see that according to the police, in the second paragraph there was
16 a vehicle. In the proximity of the vehicle several persons were present,
17 officers of the crime politician approached the same in order to
18 establish the reason of their stay in the settlement Komic because nobody
19 is currently residing there. And it says: "At the site the persons were
20 identified as ..."
21 There are individuals listed. Number three, the person present
22 is Carlos Zvonimir, born in Buenos Aires, Argentina
23 the Croatian Helsinki committee.
24 Number 4 is Jadranko Mrkalj who is, I believe you indicated, the
25 son of Petar Mrkalj.
Page 16106
1 If you go down to the bottom after the last name, it says the
2 above mentioned Magdic, Mario and Ozegovic Hasim were found putting
3 post-mortem remains of decomposed bodies in a wooden casket, and the
4 officers of the crime police department conducted informative interviews
5 with all of the mentioned persons regarding ..."
6 MR. MISETIC: If we turn the page in English.
7 Q. "... the circumstances of the discovery of the dead bodies, at
8 which point it was established that the bodies were identified by the
9 citizen Momcilovic Dusanka as the following persons.
10 And then identifies the deceased.
11 And then it says: "The above mentioned citizens intended to
12 conduct burial of the bodies at the Komic local cemetery even though they
13 had not previously informed the competent organs and the chief of the
14 crime police department of Zadar-Knin police administration,
15 Mr. Ive Kardum was immediately notified of the events who then notified
16 the public prosecutor and the investigating judge in Zadar, and the above
17 mentioned persons were prohibited from burying the bodies until the
18 arrival of the on-site investigation team."
19 You can turn the page in Croatian, please, but ...
20 Now my question, Professor, is why wouldn't members of the
21 Helsinki Committee upon the discovery of a body report this to the
22 appropriate authorities for processing, and do you have any knowledge of
23 this incident and why the Croatian Helsinki Committee would start to bury
24 remains rather than contact the local authorities?
25 A. I will have to repeat. At least on 30 occasions, between the
Page 16107
1 summer of 1995, and unless I'm mistaken this is early 1996, we turned to
2 various local authorities, in particular the Zadar police administration.
3 We had never met up with any response.
4 In this particular instance, the dead bodies were deposing.
5 Mr. Jovan Nikolic, the Orthodox priest was summoned, and I believe he was
6 the only Orthodox priest active in Croatia at the time. So that in line
7 with the custom and religious tradition, the individuals had -- the
8 remains of the individuals who had for at least three weeks been lying
9 exposed be buried, and this is something the neighbours were aware of, as
10 well as the members of the local authorities. Nobody did anything.
11 We believed it was our task to do something about it. As soon as
12 our representatives appeared, of course, the police force emerged, and
13 seemingly wanted to show that it was very active.
14 Q. In the statement it says at the top of page 2, which is in the
15 middle of the English translation there, that Momcilovic Dusanka in the
16 course of the interview, it was established that the same discovered the
17 bodies on 15 February 1996
18 the Helsinki
19 Do you know if the Helsinki
20 reported to the Helsinki
21 burial that they contacted the Zadar-Knin police administration?
22 A. I repeat, I don't know, but I do not believe that they did. It
23 is quite telling that the lady believed that the Helsinki Committee is
24 the one she needs to turn to rather than the local police authorities
25 which only goes to show what sort of a reputation they enjoyed among the
Page 16108
1 citizens in that area.
2 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I ask that the exhibit be marked,
3 and I tender it into evidence.
4 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
6 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1323, Your Honours.
7 JUDGE ORIE: D1323 is admitted into evidence.
8 MR. MISETIC:
9 Q. Professor, I would like to turn your attention now to a different
10 portion of the Helsinki Committee report which is page 82 in the English.
11 I'll try to find it in the Croatian, the right page.
12 MR. MISETIC: And, again, Mr. Registrar, this is exhibit 65 ter
13 4674.
14 In the Croatian it's page 81 in e-court; page 80 in the original.
15 Okay. Sorry, it's the next page in the English.
16 Q. Actually, I can show you first here, and then we'll go back to
17 that previous page in English. But you have the original in front of
18 you, Professor. What I'm interested in is the number of burned houses.
19 You quote General Forand as having stated on the 10th of October, 1995
20 that according to his data, the UN military observers visited 320
21 villages and counted 22.000 burned houses?
22 MR. MISETIC: If we can go back one page in the English, please,
23 which is again back one page in the Croatian version as well.
24 Q. There's that paragraph which is the third paragraph. It says:
25 "In the former UN Sector South at least 22.000 houses and a number of
Page 16109
1 villages were burned in a systematic and organised manner."
2 Now the report seems to cite General Forand on the 10th of
3 October for the number that is 22.000 burned houses.
4 MR. MISETIC: And, Mr. Registrar, if we could pull up Exhibit
5 P400, please.
6 Q. While we're waiting for that, the number of 22.000 burned houses
7 is a number that was then used in the film, Storm over Krajina as the
8 number of burned houses. Correct?
9 A. Correct.
10 Q. Now this is, Professor, the press statement of General Forand on
11 the 12th of October.
12 MR. MISETIC: And if we could go to page 2, please.
13 Q. In the fourth paragraph, if we can go to page 2 in the Croatian,
14 yes. Fourth paragraph. The first thing I would to -- let's just talk
15 about the number 22.000. What General Forand seems to have said is that
16 21.744 houses were observed over 16.578 were destroyed by fire or
17 severely damaged. Before you give your answer, I can tell you I will
18 explore with you the number of 16.578 in a minute. But just do you see
19 that in fact the number of 22.000 is General Forand's number of houses
20 observed and not houses burned or destroyed, as is indicated in the HHO
21 report?
22 A. That's correct.
23 Q. Now, so -- now we get to the number of 16.578 destroyed by fire
24 or severely damaged. And I would just like to show you a few samples of
25 the methodology and analysis that went into that number. And you may
Page 16110
1 have actually some knowledge, given your knowledge of this area, that you
2 may be able to help us out to understand some of the complexities here.
3 MR. MISETIC: Mr. Registrar, if we could have on the screen
4 1D67-0265, please.
5 Q. Now what I'm going to you show you step by step this is, for
6 example, an analysis of the number of burned homes in the Korenica area.
7 And can you see what we've done is we've put Korenica, which is in the
8 middle towards the bottom middle, is the city of Korenica, as well as all
9 of the outlying villages in the area.
10 MR. MISETIC: If we could turn the page, please.
11 Q. We've -- what we did was then we went to the official census of
12 the Republic of Croatia
13 inhabitants in the entire wider Korenica area of Serbs and Croats as well
14 as the total number of dwellings in that wider area, so they're all
15 plotted in terms of the numbers. It is clear that the Serbs were the
16 overwhelming majority in the Korenica area and the total buildings
17 according to the census is 947.
18 MR. MISETIC: If we can go to the next page, please.
19 Q. This is now just a breakdown of the number of buildings in each
20 of the cities, villages -- city, villages, and hamlets. We've broken it
21 down. It's the population as well as the total buildings.
22 MR. MISETIC: If we go to the next page.
23 Q. This is again a continuation of the remaining four hamlets which
24 gives the ethnic composition as well as the total buildings according to
25 the census.
Page 16111
1 MR. MISETIC: And now if we go to the final page, please.
2 Q. First let me ask you, just in fairness to you, Professor, are you
3 able to understand this in English, or would you like to us put a --
4 A. I do. Sorry.
5 Q. This is a break down now. And the UNMO analysis of the number of
6 burned buildings in Korenica, they only included three of the eight
7 villages and hamlets in Korenica municipality. We went ahead and assumed
8 that perhaps the UNMOs didn't know that these were separate areas, so we
9 included them just in case they didn't separate it out.
10 So if you look at the total viewed according UNMO, if you go to
11 the column that says total viewed, according to the UNMO report, they
12 viewed 3215 houses. And then it says how many were totally destroyed and
13 partially destroyed. You see that they say 622 were total destroyed.
14 2.953 were partially destroyed.
15 Now if you go to the column that says the total number the
16 buildings in 1991, you will see that where the UNMO said that they viewed
17 3.000 buildings in Korenica, there were only 617 in Korenica according to
18 the census. In Seganovac they viewed 15; there were 26. In
19 Vrelo Korenicko there were 200 that UNMO says it viewed, but there were
20 only 90 on the census. And if you go down and add them all up, and then
21 we went ahead and proceeded to include in numbers 4 through 8 any other
22 villages in that area that may have mistakenly been included as part of
23 Titova Korenica, and you get a total of 947 total buildings according to
24 the census. And I can just tell you, in case there's any confusion, that
25 earlier on in this case there was testimony by Mr. Anttila and under
Page 16112
1 questioning by Judge Gwaunza. This is at page 2.673 beginning at line
2 24, going over to the next page, and ending at line 12. Judge Gwaunza
3 asked maybe -- and I will read it out. She says:
4 "Can I ask you, would you know whether in giving those figures
5 they would include, for instance, the number of buildings or structures
6 that may have been burning or that may have been burnt within one
7 homestead. In other words I'm asking if a team visit the one homestead
8 where there is a house in other smaller structures outside, and they
9 found that the house and the structures were burning. In their reports
10 would they say five structures were burning, or would they say one,
11 referring to the homestead?"
12 And Mr. Antilla responded:
13 "To my understanding the teams considered houses as houses where
14 people would be living, so they would not be considering sheds for the
15 livestock and so on. That was their task anyway."
16 Now this is the example of Korenica. Do you see that the number
17 of 16.000 that General Forand mentions, in fact, there is an significant
18 variance now when we look at Korenica between the total number of houses
19 they claim to have viewed and the total number of buildings that actually
20 were recorded in the 1991 census.
21 Professor?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Do you recognise the possibility that that number of 16.000 may
24 be inflated?
25 A. There were three sources we drew upon. One was the
Page 16113
1 United Nations, or their observers, in other words; the second one was
2 the official position of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mr. Granic,
3 who said that 5.000 homes destroyed during combat alone, and we found a
4 great many that were destroyed later on. And in addition to that, we
5 used our findings from various areas to draw inferences. Because we had
6 limited resources, human and materiel resources, we weren't able to go
7 out into each and every area, but on the basis of the observation made
8 with regard to certain localities, we drew inferences which were
9 consistent with these ones here. Our first findings that were presented
10 as an approximation in the HHO report were -- had to do roughly with
11 20.000 homes from both sectors. And this figure was later on used by the
12 UN sources and by various NGOs and the press. I repeat, again, these
13 were inferences that we made on the basis of the findings from the areas
14 observed.
15 As far as this discrepancy is concerned, let me draw your
16 attention to one possibility that we entertained as well. Here in fact
17 the case was that the former Yugoslav municipalities which were much
18 larger, were confused with the new system of the Republic of Croatia
19 where the municipalities were far smaller. And at times we would have a
20 great confusion like in the area of Kostajnica and Korenica. And this is
21 just an offhand theory now that I'm drawing your attention to as a
22 possible explanation. As far as the methodology used by foreign
23 observers and how they might have arrived at the figures they have
24 arrived at, that is something that I cannot comment upon.
25 Q. Well, first let me just clarify. HHO didn't do its own
Page 16114
1 systematic assessment of the number of burned buildings. Correct?
2 A. In those reports you have that, in several dozens of communities
3 we counted those houses. Other results are extrapolated from other
4 reports, so they are not a fruit of systematic research.
5 Q. And do you agree that the actual report, the HHO report from
6 2001, doesn't cite any statement by Minister Granic in support of the
7 number. What it does is rely on General Forand's assessment in terms of
8 what is explicitly in the report.
9 A. That's correct.
10 Q. Thank you, Professor. I would like to take a look at a different
11 municipality.
12 MR. MISETIC: I'm sorry, Mr. President, I ask that the exhibit be
13 marked, and I tender it into evidence.
14 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1324, Your Honours.
17 JUDGE ORIE: Is admitted into evidence.
18 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I can also tell you we have
19 submitted the underlying census and information to the Prosecution. If
20 the Court wishes that we mark those and tender those for the benefit of
21 the Court, we're capable of doing that as well. It's up to the Chamber.
22 JUDGE ORIE: We'll give it some thought, whether we will invite
23 to you tender it.
24 MR. MISETIC: Mr. Registrar, if I could now have 1D67-0275.
25 Q. This is the village of Licki Osik and the surrounding area. What
Page 16115
1 we have done is we've put a map together with the confrontation line as
2 of the 3rd of August. And we can see that Licki Osik is in fact a front
3 line village.
4 MR. MISETIC: If we could turn the page, please.
5 Q. This is now, we have put in again the wider villages and hamlets
6 that were on both sides of the confrontation line as well as the ethnic
7 breakdown. And you can see that there's a roughly equivalent ethnic
8 breakdown of the Licki Osik and surrounding area.
9 MR. MISETIC: If we turn the page, please.
10 Q. This is now a further breakdown in detail of the various villages
11 and hamlets that make up Licki Osik, and can you tell, for example,
12 Licki Osik itself is a roughly ethnically balanced area, as is
13 Siroka Kula.
14 MR. MISETIC: If we can turn the page, please.
15 Q. Again we have done the same type of analysis, comparing what UNMO
16 says were the total number of viewed buildings, comparing it to the
17 number of buildings that actually existed in 1991, and you can see -- you
18 can see that there's a difference.
19 What I'm particularly interested in, though, is if we look at
20 Licki Osik and we assume for the sake of argument that every building,
21 meaning of the 953 that were there in 1991, if we assume for the sake of
22 argument that every building there was completely or partly damaged,
23 given the ethnic composition there, meaning 1570 Serbs, against -- I
24 shouldn't say against - with 1156 Croats, can you explain why or what
25 the circumstances would be that might lead to the complete destruction of
Page 16116
1 a village that has a rough ethnic balance?
2 A. According to my knowledge, Licki Osik was not completely
3 destroyed. Almost two thirds of edifices remained undamaged. Don't hold
4 me to the percentage, but roughly, that's first.
5 Secondly, we have seen situations where mixed population villages
6 completely destroyed. First one side would destroy the other side's
7 houses, and then the other side would destroy the first side's houses.
8 But I'm not sure that I know that this happened in Licki Osik. And I
9 reiterate it is not known to me that Licki Osik has been destroyed to
10 that extent as some other communities.
11 Q. Based on your answer, I have two questions.
12 One, then if in fact two thirds it wasn't destroyed, then that
13 would mean that the UNMOs numbers with respect to Licki Osik would be
14 significantly less than what they reported, correct, because they
15 reported 800 --
16 A. That's obvious.
17 Q. So that's the first point.
18 The second point is you have now mentioned something that in fact
19 is probably true which is that areas that were under Serb control that
20 were of mixed ethnicity in 1993, let's say, could have had Croat houses
21 damaged or destroyed, and then in 1995 people who returned to that
22 village did the same to the Serb houses.
23 My question is when you then try to do an assessment of the
24 entire area, and you come up with numbers like this for houses totally or
25 partly destroyed it's very difficult then to determine who did the
Page 16117
1 destroying, how many of the houses were destroyed prior to August 1995,
2 how many were destroyed subsequently. Certainly if you are at the UNMO.
3 Correct?
4 A. Our colleagues who went out on the ground, they cynically called
5 humane botany, you would see in houses that had been destroyed for two or
6 three years, you could find vegetation, even trees growing out of such
7 ruins. And it was very accurate, although primitive, criterion to tell
8 those two types of damaged houses apart. There were houses where trees
9 were growing out of -- so that they could have been destroyed in the
10 summer that we investigated that situation. We took that into account.
11 It would -- it was very easy to tell those apart. Very few houses were
12 destroyed by the Serbs in the summer of 1995. Most of the buildings that
13 were destroyed were destroyed when the Serbs had recently taken control
14 of the area, as it was in 1991 and beginning of 1992.
15 Q. Okay. You, however, don't know whether the internationals when
16 they were doing this, how accurate they were in distinguishing
17 pre-Operation Storm and post-Operation Storm damage; correct? You didn't
18 review their work.
19 A. I did not check, but when you read their reports it is obvious
20 that they hadn't done that, whenever they did so, they listed or
21 enumerated buildings and recorded buildings that were useable and damaged
22 -- and buildings that had been damaged. They evidenced the degree of
23 destruction and maybe the cause, whether it was fighting or some other
24 cause of destruction.
25 Q. Okay.
Page 16118
1 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I ask that the exhibit be marked,
2 and I tender it into evidence.
3 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
4 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
5 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1325, Your Honours.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Is admitted into evidence.
7 MR. MISETIC:
8 Q. Professor Puhovski, I'd like to take you now to Kistanje.
9 MR. MISETIC: Which, Mr. Registrar, is 1D67-0294.
10 Q. This is the village of Kistanje
11 hamlets, and, once again, what we've done is we have included every
12 hamlet and village in the Kistanje area and put the census material
13 together. So you see the number of the Serbs versus the number of Croats
14 there in 1991. And according to the census how many total buildings
15 there were in the entire wider Kistanje area, and it's 547 buildings.
16 MR. MISETIC: If we turn the page, please.
17 Q. Now we have taken then the UNMO report from November of 1995 and
18 put all -- anything that is from the Kistanje municipality on the chart,
19 and put their assessments of total viewed, completely damaged, and partly
20 damaged. And according to their report, which is Exhibit P176 in
21 evidence, there were 101 completely damaged buildings in Kistanje and 63
22 partly damaged.
23 Now, not to minimise the amount of damage, which is not my
24 intention, but what I wish to point out, though, is compared to the
25 census figures, it would indicate that there is roughly one third of the
Page 16119
1 buildings in Kistanje were either completely or partly damaged when
2 compared to the census figures of 1991, according to UNMO.
3 Do you recognise that?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. And the damage to Kistanje, this number now, that comes to again
6 roughly one third, or to be precise, 164 completely or partly damaged
7 buildings out of 547. That number, 164, is from a report dated
8 November of -- November 4, 1995
9 Kistanje wasn't -- that the damage in Kistanje didn't occur at one
10 instance; it was -- it continued to pop up for several weeks after
11 Operation Storm. There would be other incidents of burning. Correct?
12 A. Yes, that's correct. It is stated on page 93 of our report.
13 Q. Thank you, Professor.
14 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I ask that the exhibit be marked,
15 and I tender it into evidence.
16 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
17 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
18 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1326, Your Honours.
19 JUDGE ORIE: D12 -- just one second, what's the number. D1326 is
20 admitted into evidence.
21 MR. MISETIC:
22 Q. Then one last assessment on this issue, Professor.
23 MR. MISETIC: This is 1D67-0373 please.
24 Q. What we did was, Professor, we took nine municipalities from the
25 UNMO assessment. This is just nine. There are more. We didn't have
Page 16120
1 time to go through all of it. But if you -- we start to flip through.
2 You can read across, we took the UNMO assessment and put them in the
3 proper municipalities.
4 So, for example, you can look at the Benkovac municipality which
5 is the first municipality there. Then you can look at various villages
6 that are referenced in the UNMO report from the Benkovac municipality.
7 We gave -- we put in the number of buildings in those villages in 1991,
8 compared it with the UNMO assessment of total viewed, completely damaged,
9 and partly damaged, provided you with an assessment of the ethnic
10 composition of those areas, and then we have a column that says the
11 difference and identify the UNMO team involved.
12 You can -- we can with scroll down. For example, we did the same
13 for Drnis, Donji Lapac, Gospic.
14 MR. MISETIC: If we turn the page, please.
15 Q. There's Knin --
16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, we have the B/C/S version on our screen at this
17 moment.
18 MR. MISETIC: I'm sorry.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Is there any way that we can have the English
20 version. Yes.
21 MR. MISETIC:
22 Q. Knin and -- it is referred to as Titova Korenica because that was
23 the name prior to 1991. It is now just Korenica.
24 MR. MISETIC: If we could turn the page, please.
25 Q. Otocac.
Page 16121
1 MR. MISETIC: Turn the page, please.
2 Q. Senj and Sibenik. And now there's the total line at the
3 building. You can see that the total number of buildings in this
4 municipalities -- at least I should say the villages, cities, and hamlets
5 referenced in the UNMO report within these municipalities. The total
6 number of buildings in 1991 was 6342, but UNMO claimed to have viewed
7 13851 in that area and claimed to have found 10647 completely or partly
8 damaged buildings in those areas. And if you compare the total viewed
9 against the total number of buildings that were documented in 1991,
10 that's a difference of 7500 buildings.
11 If you take the total number of damaged buildings alleged to have
12 been found, which is 10647, and subtract out the total number of
13 buildings that actually there were in 1991, the difference is 4305 more
14 buildings than UNMO claims to have -- had been completely or partly
15 damaged than the 1991 census recognises as having even existed at that
16 time. And that assumes that every buildings that existed in 1991 was
17 partly or totally damaged.
18 My point, Professor, is that this number that has been bandied
19 about over the course of the years of 22.000 burned houses, very much
20 relies on the assessment of the UNMOs, which you will concede, you have
21 never actually sat down, looked at that report and tried to do a
22 scholarly analysis after that report that you might do at Zagreb
23 university, for example. There is no scholarly assessment that you have
24 attempted to do of that assessment.
25 A. Just three things. On page 93 that I cited just a minute ago in
Page 16122
1 our report, it is clearly stated that we did not count damage and burned
2 houses, that these were assessment. Another thing, any sociologist would
3 say this to you, the Yugoslav census was based on the concept of
4 household. It's a patriarchical concept, so there are certain edifices
5 which are connected with every household. The UNMOs must have counted
6 barns and some other outbuildings, and this is the only way that they
7 could have come up with such a number.
8 So you didn't take into account just the main building but also
9 the pigsty or cowshed and sheds for other types of cattle. So they must
10 have counted each of them separately, and this is the only explanation
11 that seems to me plausible. Although there is this possibility, that
12 somebody, you know, just invented those numbers, but it doesn't seem true
13 to me.
14 Q. Well, there is also the possibility that this assessment was done
15 in a moving vehicle, driving down the main roads, and just by eyesight
16 trying to make estimates of how many buildings are in the village, how
17 many were destroyed, et cetera.
18 Do you recognise that?
19 A. Unfortunately, I have to, because this is something that I cannot
20 discount. But the situation was too serious, and it still is, to let
21 somebody just drive around or approach the same place down two different
22 roads and then count double. I would like to believe that this is a
23 difference in methodology and not a job lacking seriousness. But I don't
24 know.
25 Q. Let me ask you a factual question.
Page 16123
1 Did the HHO have the underlying UNMO assessment when it was
2 preparing this report? Meaning -- let me be specific. I don't mean just
3 a report of a number. I mean did you have the UNMO report, village by
4 village, hamlet by hamlet, of the counting they were doing?
5 A. No. My answer is no.
6 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I ask that the exhibit be marked,
7 and I tender it into evidence.
8 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
9 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
10 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1327, Your Honours.
11 JUDGE ORIE: D1327, I heard, is admitted into evidence.
12 Please proceed.
13 MR. MISETIC: Two short topic areas, Mr. President, and I will be
14 finished.
15 Q. Professor, let me show you - if I can find it - 1D67-0099,
16 please.
17 I want to show you two exhibits to save some time, Professor, so
18 first I will show you this one, I'll show you the next one.
19 This is an article from Nacional from 15 October 1997. It is an
20 interview given by Cedo Prodanovic who at the time was a member of the
21 Presidency of the Croatian Helsinki
22 picture, and again this is it October 1997, there's a picture there, and
23 it is Mr. Prodanovic and Mr. Cicak standing in front of the Tribunal.
24 And this is his interview discussing a meeting that was held between Mr.
25 Prodanovic and Mr. Cicak on the one side with the Office of the
Page 16124
1 Prosecutor. And I'd like to just point out a few comments of
2 Mr. Prodanovic.
3 MR. MISETIC: If we could go -- in the Croatian we will have to
4 blow this up because the print is very small. It's at the bottom far
5 left-hand column. There we go. And in the English it starts at the
6 bottom of the first page.
7 Q. It says:
8 "The first question regarded the reasons for which he and
9 Ivan Zvonimir Cicak travelled to The Hague."
10 And Mr. Prodanovic said:
11 "Mr. Cicak and I went to The Hague upon the invitation of the OTP
12 of the international Tribunal as officials of the Croatian Helsinki
13 Committee which is part of an international organisation for the
14 protection of human rights. The ICTY demonstrated" --
15 MR. MISETIC: If we could turn the page, please.
16 Q. "... an interest for the activities of the HHO, so they invited
17 us to give them firsthand information regarding our work." And a few
18 sentences down. It says:
19 "A great deal of data collect in the field by our activists was
20 interesting to the international Tribunal in The Hague. Therefore, we
21 mainly discussed determining the methodology of our work so that our
22 collaboration would be as effective as possible."
23 Now, actually let me ask you a few questions while we have this
24 here.
25 Are you aware of the circumstances of this visit of
Page 16125
1 Mr. Prodanovic and Mr. Cicak to the Office of the Prosecutor?
2 A. I remember that there was talk about that at the executive
3 committee after they had returned. They reported briefly to their
4 colleagues on their stay in The Hague
5 Helsinki Committee at the time.
6 Q. Now, Mr. Prodanovic says, "They invited us to give them firsthand
7 information regarding our work," and then he goes on to say, "We mainly
8 discussed determining the methodology of our work so that our
9 collaboration would be as effective as possible."
10 What was the methodology that was agreed upon between the HHO and
11 Mr. Prodanovic, on the one hand, and the Office of the Prosecutor?
12 A. As far as I am aware, we informed the people in The Hague
13 our methodology. They were only launching their investigation and were
14 interested in knowing how this was done in the region.
15 We acquainted them with our methodology. By that time the
16 material for the report had already been finished, and we were
17 contemplating its distribution by way of photocopies. To my knowledge,
18 this had to do with us conveying to them our experience in relation to
19 the investigations done into the Krajina.
20 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I ask that the exhibit be marked,
21 and I tender it into evidence.
22 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
24 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, that will be Exhibit D1328.
25 JUDGE ORIE: And is admitted into evidence.
Page 16126
1 MR. MISETIC: Mr. Registrar, I'd now like to show a video. This
2 is 1D67-0209, please.
3 [Videotape played]
4 "THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover]
5 "Stankovic: What does this mean? Are there aggravating or
6 mitigating circumstances for Gotovina, and how do you know this?
7 "Zarko Puhovski: I don't know this. I can't say that I know
8 what they know, but I do know that there are some additional facts which
9 they received which weren't in the indictment, some of which are
10 positive, some negative.
11 "Stankovic: Which type of facts do you think prevail?
12 "Zarko Puhovski: In my opinion with regards to the current
13 indictment, there are more positive than negative facts.
14 "Stankovic: You are not able to comment further?
15 "Zarko Puhovski: I cannot say anything because these are clearly
16 matters of an internal nature. They know them. Now whether or not they
17 will use them is a different issue.
18 "Stankovic: Does this mean that the HHO participated in
19 disclosing these documents?
20 "Zarko Puhovski: We gave them everything we had to the state
21 attorney, the police, and representatives of the court in The Hague
22 What a what they did with these materials is partly evident now.
23 Unfortunately, they used other sources as well, namely, Veritas and
24 others, which we discussed, if you recall, almost five years ago in your
25 show. There was nothing we could do about this whatsoever."
Page 16127
1 MR. MISETIC:
2 Q. Professor, I'm interested in the last comment where you say that,
3 "We gave everything we had to the state attorney, the police, and the
4 representatives of the Court in The Hague. What they did with these
5 materials is partly evident now."
6 My question is a combination of your statement on this TV
7 programme and Mr. Prodanovic's talk about a methodology. The underlying
8 reports the investigations in the field, the notes, the data on the
9 computer database, you seem to indicate, and that's why I'm asking to
10 correct me now, that this material was given to the proper authorities.
11 Mr. Prodanovic is in The Hague
12 cooperation between OTP and the HHO. Why weren't the underlying reports
13 submitted to the Office of the Prosecutor at least, so that we could
14 verify some of the witness statements that are referred to in this
15 report?
16 A. I repeat, we handed over our reports when they were finished in
17 1999 -- or, rather, we sent them to some 300 addresses. I have already
18 mentioned this. From the office of the president to all the state
19 agencies, to all the embassies, to the Zagreb office of the ICTY.
20 This is what we did with the material at the time. At times,
21 members of certain Defence teams approached us for information and at the
22 time when I was president of the HHO we provided the information to
23 everyone who asked for it. In other words we did not adopt specific
24 approach depending on who turned to us. We provided whatever material we
25 could gather at the time, in the premises of the HHO.
Page 16128
1 It all revolved, in essence, around the report that is being
2 analysed here, and that was available to everyone. I don't know that
3 anything changed in the work methodology. Once Mr. Prodanovic and
4 Mr. Cicak returned from The Hague
5 anything beyond that which they said here. In other words that they
6 discussed the way that we went about things and the way we were still
7 going about things at the time.
8 Q. I understand that the report was circulated. But as you probably
9 are aware, Ms. Higgins asked you, and I'm asking you, the underlying
10 information that forms the report, you indicated that Mr. Mrkalj,
11 Jadranko Mrkalj has that information and was asking money for it. I'm
12 asking you why that underlying information, instead of going to
13 Mr. Jadranko Mrkalj, didn't get sent to the Office of the Prosecutor for
14 their use or, alternatively, to the Croatian state prosecutor's office or
15 the Croatian state police?
16 A. For the reasons I mentioned the other day, all the data was in
17 the possession of Petar Mrkalj. Upon his death they were in possession
18 of his son. None of us sought the material, though we would have liked
19 to have our copies of the material, we did not believe it necessary to
20 pay for it. The material was held in private hands because
21 Mr. Petar Mrkalj lived in fear of the control of the military secret
22 service over the HHO, and that's why he kept all the material in his own
23 apartment in Karlovac, and that's why they stayed with his son
24 ultimately, and his fears proved to be true in fact.
25 Nobody asked me personally to give the underlying material in
Page 16129
1 relation to the report, and I, myself, wanted to have my own archive of
2 it and --
3 THE INTERPRETER: Can the interpreter please finish.
4 A. [Previous translation continues] ... I wanted to have an archive
5 of my own, but I did not ultimately have it, due to the fact that I
6 didn't want to pay for it.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich.
8 MS. FROLICH: I'm sorry. I think there is an error in English
9 transcript, page 26 line 11, where it says "none of us sought the
10 material." I think the witness might have said something different in --
11 JUDGE ORIE: We will verify that.
12 When you said upon his death they were in possession of his son,
13 referring to this materials, and then in the next line you said, it
14 starts in the transcript, "none of us," and then the part that follows,
15 Ms. Frolich has raised some doubts, and then the end of that sentence is,
16 "although we would have liked to have copies of the material." Could you
17 tell us what did you say about seeking the material, did you, did you
18 not, did none of you? Did it ...
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The material concerned consisted of
20 handwritten notes made on the basis of the field work and audiotapes, all
21 of which were used for the drafting of the report. The material was in
22 the apartment belong to Petar Mrkalj in Karlovac at the time when he
23 died. He kept them there because he was afraid that somebody would steel
24 them from the HHO office. When he died, his son, Jadranko Mrkalj
25 inherited them. I tried to obtain the material from Jadranko Mrkalj --
Page 16130
1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, so where the transcript reads, "none of us
2 sought the material," is that inaccurate? Because that's what we read on
3 our transcript.
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My apologies. Nobody ever asked us
5 to hand over the material underlying the report. I, as the president,
6 asked to have the material because I wanted to have a complete archive.
7 However, I, as a president, or any of my colleagues were never asked by
8 anyone to provide the underlying material.
9 JUDGE ORIE: Now, because I'm getting a bit confused, finally,
10 Jadranko Mrkalj asked money for it. And finally did you obtain that
11 material, or did you not?
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Let me repeat. We decided that we
13 would not be paying in exchange for the material, and, consequently, we
14 did not obtain it.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Okay. So, therefore, it was not in your possession
16 so as to provide it to anyone. Is that --
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, no. They were not, and no --
18 nobody asked us to provide them.
19 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.
20 MR. MISETIC: I'd like to ask that the video be marked, and I
21 tender it into evidence.
22 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
24 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1329, Your Honours.
25 JUDGE ORIE: D1329 is admitted into evidence.
Page 16131
1 MR. MISETIC:
2 Q. Last document, Professor.
3 MR. MISETIC: Mr. Registrar, if I could 1D67-0249, please.
4 Can we scroll to the top of the Croatian, please.
5 Q. Professor, this seems to be a fax line from you at the top with a
6 date and a time stamp. And it's --
7 MR. MISETIC: If we could turn the page.
8 Q. It is titled to the Croatian Helsinki Committee for human rights
9 members, dated 17 May 1998
10 MR. MISETIC: If we could turn the page, please, just to look at
11 the signature. There is a signature at the bottom?
12 Q. Professor, this is your resignation letter to the Croatian
13 Helsinki
14 A. Yes, that's my letter.
15 MR. MISETIC: If we could turn back in the Croatian, please.
16 Q. Now, you in fact resigned from the Helsinki Committee in 1998,
17 and you provided the committee with your reasoning for why you were
18 leaving.
19 MR. MISETIC: If we can go to the bottom paragraph.
20 Q. "Amongst other things, you write that for a longer period, the
21 committee was too often (because sometimes it is almost inevitable) and
22 uncritically involved into the party and political activities, and,
23 respectively, it was tendentiously reduced to the media promotion
24 apparatus."
25 First, can you explain what types of things was the committee
Page 16132
1 doing at the time which led you to conclude that the committee was
2 uncritically involved into the party and political activities?
3 A. Several members of the committee, contrary to the logic of an
4 NGO, were involved in the activities of certain political parties, or
5 supported them, in my view.
6 Q. Which members of the committee were you referring to?
7 A. Several individuals. For instance, Mr. Cicak, who participated
8 in several political party activities, although not as a member of the
9 party. Like, for instance, those of the HSLS. And I was referring to
10 Mr. Banac. Primarily I was referring to the two of them.
11 Q. Okay. You continue on that that paragraph, and you say:
12 "Lately, perhaps, it seemed that racing sponsors on the basis of,
13 according to me, misunderstood professionalism, pushed aside the original
14 mandate of the HHO. The HHO has dealt more and more with what foreign
15 donators requested, e.g., war crimes, for which I am convinced it is, in
16 principle, questionable whether they are within the scope of our work."
17 Can you comment on what exactly you meant there that the HHO was
18 dealing more with what foreign donators requested. What foreign donators
19 are you referring to there?
20 A. At that point in time, the spring of 1998, we had around 30
21 employees, and it required smooth working. Unlike the initial small
22 organisation, as it grew in number, it became less flexible. The donors
23 concerned were the Soros Foundation, primarily the Soros Foundation at
24 the time. The Helsinki
25 the Netherlands
Page 16133
1 time more than half of the funds were donated by the Soros Foundation.
2 That was roughly the situation at the time.
3 Q. Did you believe that these foreign donors were focussing the work
4 of the HHO on war crimes, and why did you believe that it was
5 questionable whether this was within the scope of the HHO's work?
6 A. It seemed to me that, regardless of the large number of
7 employees, our resources were quite limited, and our main task was to be
8 concerned with the violation of the rights of the living. I believe that
9 the bulk of our work on the other issue had been done in 1995 and 1996.
10 A month or two before this, I suggested that the special
11 department concerned with war crimes within the HHO and which had four to
12 five employees, should discontinue its activity. I felt that we no
13 longer needed it with the lapse of time. This was the part that was in
14 dispute. It was felt by some others that we could attract a lot of funds
15 from donors if we pursued this activity.
16 I'm telling you that this is happening some three years after the
17 end of the war, and my feeling was that there was no need to be involved
18 in this specifically. Rather, that we should concentrate on the people
19 turning to our office, seeking for assistance.
20 Q. Professor, that's actually the point I wanted to get to. You
21 left in 1998 before the first report came out in 1999.
22 Do you agree with me that the report in 1999 was written, trying
23 to put as much -- as much -- as many allegations as possible in the
24 report to justify the foreign financing that had gone into the HHO, and
25 that may be one of the reasons why the underlying documentation that
Page 16134
1 supports the report is in fact missing.
2 MS. FROLICH: Mr. President, I have to object. This calls for a
3 speculative answer on the part of the witness who was not present in
4 1999.
5 JUDGE ORIE: We do not know. But the question could be put in
6 such a way that whatever fear you may have on whether it calls for
7 speculation could be taken away.
8 Mr. Misetic, I leave it in your hands how to do that.
9 MR. MISETIC: Sure.
10 Q. Professor, you're one of the founders of the HHO. You have spent
11 many years in that organisation. You resigned as a result of some of the
12 issues that you have mentioned in the letter, including the fact that --
13 I think you have just testified that some people in the organisation felt
14 that dealing with war crimes was a good way to get money for the
15 organisation and that you resigned out of principle for that reason.
16 My question to you is: Do you agree with me that it is entirely
17 possible that 1999 report was compiled to justify the foreign financing
18 that had gone into the HHO, but the underlying documentation has never
19 surfaced so that the report itself can never be verified?
20 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Misetic, I left it in your hands. But these are
21 two questions, as a matter of fact. And what you're doing at this moment
22 is, we should clearly distinguish between several issues apparently here.
23 Mr. Puhovski, you said you thought that no attention was needed
24 anymore for war crimes, but apparently foreign sponsors were pushing for
25 war crime activities. Is that how I understand -- I have to understand
Page 16135
1 your testimony?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I wouldn't say that they exerted
3 pressure. A decision had to be made to stop receiving certain funds,
4 which the committee was in dire need of. So it was that sort of
5 pressure, financial pressure.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, I do understand that. But -- and some of you
7 thought that continuation of paying attention to war crimes would favour
8 further funding by these foreign sponsors.
9 Is that well understood?
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I repeat, unless I'm mistaken, we
11 had a three-year contract. My suggestion was that we should terminate
12 the contract, because I believed that we had done everything that was in
13 our power. This would mean that the cash-flow would stop. The idea was
14 not that we would be receiving these funds beyond 2000. Rather, we were
15 under the contract, supposed to receive the funds until the end of 1999,
16 whereas my suggestion was that we should stop it -- that we should
17 terminate the contract with the beginning of 1998 and close down the
18 department that dealt with these issues.
19 JUDGE ORIE: No further attention for war crimes and ending a
20 contract which would fund such activities. That was your position.
21 Now, finally, do I understand that this funding continued and
22 that that department paying attention to war crimes continue its
23 activities?
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Until the end of 1999, yes.
25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Now, Mr. Misetic did put a question to you in
Page 16136
1 which he implied, more or less, that paying further attention to war
2 crimes would also mean that you would have the maximum number of
3 allegations on war crimes.
4 Now, paying attention to investigating war crimes and getting the
5 highest number of war crimes is -- is not exactly the same. If -- did
6 you ever feel any pressure to focus on investigation of war crimes; or
7 did you also feel, perhaps, pressure to produce as many war crimes as
8 possible, or allegations of war crimes?
9 Was it just the subject, or was it also the result, the outcome
10 of such investigations?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I had a very long conversation
12 about this in 1996 with Mr. Ari Neiyer [phoen] who was in charge of that
13 field of work of the Soros Foundation which was our main sponsor.
14 Mr. Neiyer is one of the world renowned experts for the investigation of
15 war crimes and violations of human rights. When he came to see our team
16 again in 1997, he kept alerting us to the fact that we should rather
17 leave out some of the allegations rather than publish them and be proved
18 wrong.
19 In his capacity as a donor, he insisted on us being very careful
20 with figures, and it seemed a reasonable position to me. The pressure,
21 the financial pressure, that is, was on the topic itself and not on the
22 numbers.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then perhaps there is one element in your
24 question which has not been answered yet, and perhaps you put it to the
25 witness, that is about whether the underlying documentation was kept away
Page 16137
1 in order to -- I leave that to you.
2 MR. MISETIC: If I can follow up on that question first.
3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
4 MR. MISETIC:
5 Q. Professor, that is what happened in 1996. However, with respect
6 to what happened after you left, and your resignation letter talks and
7 you've testified now about Mr. Cicak engaging in certain political
8 activities. But my question is this: You understand that there were
9 hundreds of thousands of dollars that were put into the HHO by these
10 foreign donors. Correct?
11 A. Yes. At a certain point in time, we received some 500.000
12 dollars a year, let's say in 1997, 1998, the amount was worth much more
13 than it is it today. Let me just, for the sake of illustration, tell
14 that you in 1998, my professorial salary was some 500 dollars, which is
15 more than four times lower than today, so we could say that the
16 difference was -- difference was four-fold.
17 Q. [Overlapping speakers] [Previous translation continues] ...
18 actually, you say that in your resignation letter. You make reference to
19 the fact that you're the only activist in the HHO, everybody else was
20 paid against professional, social, or commercial logic?
21 My point to you is that people who were getting paid as
22 professionals or under commercial logic within the HHO, you have to
23 produce results for people that are putting 500.000 dollars a year into
24 your organisation, right?
25 A. Without any doubt. It says 3.500.000 in the record. That is
Page 16138
1 error. 500.000 is what I referred to.
2 You see the HHO had its finances secured on a basis of a
3 long-term plan. We had been given funds and the Soros Foundation was
4 satisfied with the outcome of our activities. There was no need for us
5 to produce something in order to satisfy anybody. The only insistence
6 was that we should continue our investigations into the war crimes which
7 was something that I felt was pointless. But nobody asked directly or
8 indirectly that we adjust in any way, increase or expand the results for
9 such-and-such a purpose.
10 Q. Two short questions because we're coming up on a break, and I
11 would like to finish before the break.
12 First, was it understood, was it not, that as a result of this
13 financing there had to be some final report by the HHO. Correct?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. Second, you have talked about Mr. Mrkalj was afraid of the
16 Croatian intelligence services and therefore hid the underlying
17 information at home.
18 My question is posing an alternative, which is that Mr. Mrkalj
19 kept the underlying information not only outside the HHO but never gave
20 it to the Office of the Prosecutor, to Croatian prosecutors, or the
21 Croatian police, because he knew that the report, in 1999, didn't have
22 supporting underlying documentation for all of the allegations in it.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich.
24 MS. FROLICH: Objection, Mr. President. Again, this is calling
25 for speculation on what Mrkalj' motives might have been.
Page 16139
1 MR. MISETIC: Your Honour.
2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but we could ask Mr. Misetic --
3 MR. MISETIC: If I could make a response. She's put into
4 evidence on direct what Mrkalj was afraid of the intelligence services,
5 so if that's speculation --
6 JUDGE ORIE: Well, I understood that to be that -- what we should
7 ask the witness is whether Mr. Mrkalj told him any such thing or whether
8 there is in the fact to his knowledge, which would be in line or not in
9 line with either the one or the other explanation. That is -- we'll ask
10 the witness for facts, and I leave it in your hands, Mr. Misetic.
11 MR. MISETIC:
12 Q. The Judge is asking for facts, Professor, but my question is also
13 tied to your experience in the HHO. Your knowledge, intimate knowledge
14 of the internal workings of that organisation.
15 First, did Mr. Mrkalj tell you explicitly that he didn't want the
16 underlying information to come to light because it might undermine the
17 credibility of the report?
18 A. Mr. Mrkalj spoke to me and others on the committee on several
19 occasions, and he even wrote letters about being afraid of the military
20 service. This is no secret, and these are facts that can be corroborated
21 by the HHO archive. He never told me anything of the sort. When I said
22 the -- when the report was published, not a single objection was made to
23 it, save for that one, which as I said, we managed to prove the objection
24 was wrong.
25 When the report was published in photocopies in 1999 and when it
Page 16140
1 was published as a book in 2001, we had reason to believe that everything
2 contained in it was corroborated. What was clear to me was that the
3 associates working for Mr. Mrkalj wrote information on their own. So
4 they knew that there was underlying documentation. I spent hours upon
5 hours listening to the audiotapes of the interviews made in the field. I
6 was listening to the people working in the field, reading their notes and
7 I was aware of their existence at the time. Unfortunately, I don't know
8 where the material is today. I can testify that in 1995, 1996, and 1997,
9 the material did exist. I cannot vouch for the entire report, of course,
10 but I can vouch for the parts of it for which I did the debriefing.
11 Q. Okay. Thank you, Professor Puhovski, for your testimony.
12 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, I ask that the exhibit on the screen
13 be marked, and I tender it into evidence.
14 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Registrar.
16 THE REGISTRAR: Exhibit D1330, Your Honours.
17 JUDGE ORIE: D1330 is admitted into evidence.
18 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, pursuant to what I said on the
19 record yesterday, we have put together a bar table submission for the
20 remaining documents concerning Mr. Puhovski's testimony. It has been
21 submitted to the OTP, and I'm advised that OTP has no objection. I could
22 be wrong, obviously but ...
23 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich.
24 MS. FROLICH: If I could have until after the break to just
25 verify that once again. Thank you very much. But --
Page 16141
1 JUDGE ORIE: Another 25 minutes.
2 MS. FROLICH: Yes, thank you.
3 [Trial Chamber confers]
4 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Misetic, you were so kind to offer the
5 underlying census material to add to the material. The Chamber would
6 appreciate if could you add that.
7 MR. MISETIC: That will in our bar table then as well,
8 Mr. President. Thank you.
9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
10 We will have a break, and we will resume at 11.00.
11 --- Recess taken at 10.39 a.m.
12 --- On resuming at 11.04 a.m.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Mikulicic.
14 Mr. Puhovski, you will now be cross-examined by Mr. Mikulicic.
15 Mr. Mikulicic is counsel for Mr. Markac.
16 Please proceed.
17 MR. MIKULICIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
18 Cross-examination by Mr. Mikulicic:
19 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Professor Puhovski.
20 A. Good morning.
21 Q. Since we're speaking the same language, I would like to ask you
22 to pause between my question and your answer, so that the interpreters
23 may do their job properly.
24 A. All right.
25 Q. Mr. Puhovski, during your testimony, you were asked and discussed
Page 16142
1 the methodology whereby the HHO activists collected information and data.
2 You also said that you -- HHO activists verified data by returning to the
3 same place where they got the data from to verify what they were told.
4 At the time, was it possible to obtain official data from the
5 police, the competent state prosecutor or judiciary, at large?
6 A. In my experience, it -- the top of the police structure,
7 Minister Jarnjak and assistant Benko were cooperative. But out in the
8 field, cooperation with local police stations was very difficult,
9 particularly in the first couple of months in autumn in 1995 and
10 spring-time 1996. There was virtually no cooperation at all.
11 Another thing. The local population were afraid of the police
12 and official organs, and we saw some documents, corroborate that when it
13 was stated that they addressed with their concerns us and not the local
14 police because they found it more acceptable.
15 The third problem was -- my experience was that the top brass of
16 the police did not receive data from the field immediately, and with
17 Mr. Jarnjak and Mr. Benko, I spoke on several occasions, and I found out
18 that they were misinformed. But after a while it would transpire that
19 what data they had did not correspond to the state of affairs in the
20 field. I attribute that to the poor organisation of the network of the
21 institutions in the area that had been reintegrated into Croatia
22 this meant that they most probably were not ready.
23 Q. This was supposed to be my next question, Mr. Puhovski. You are
24 aware, of course, that in the newly liberated territory, the Croatian
25 authorities, and by this I mean the police and the judiciary, did not --
Page 16143
1 had not functioned for more than four years, and that they had to
2 re-establish institutions of the system anew.
3 Did this circumstance -- was recognised by the HHO in their
4 reports and in their work?
5 A. Yes, we had to recognise that because or activists confronted
6 this situation daily, the situation where what was required of the
7 authorities did not work or their functioning was negative towards Serb
8 citizens. There were negative reaction towards them.
9 In several months of the Autumn of 1995, we had 50 reports by
10 people who claimed that they had been kicked out of police stations
11 whenever they entered them to seek service, and when they introduced
12 themselves and it could be concluded that they were Serbs from their
13 names and family names. Some things could not progress further, but the
14 problem was that it was claimed that everything was going okay, that the
15 civilian authorities had taken control over the whole territory and that
16 the whole territory had been reintegrated into the rest of the country,
17 but for months after August 1995, this did not hold.
18 Q. Without a doubt, it followed from the political will.
19 A. Yes, from the very top of the leadership.
20 Q. When you talk about HHO activists a couple of days ago, you said
21 something about their educational and professional profile or background.
22 My question is: Among the HHO activists were there any people
23 who had received any forensic or criminology training or background to
24 recognise the situation out in the field?
25 A. Unfortunately, no.
Page 16144
1 Q. I noticed, Mr. Puhovski, in the HHO's report - that's 65 ter
2 4674 - that very often, or as a rule, the Croatian term murder and
3 killing is being used.
4 Will you agree with me that that term has some legal
5 connotations, which presumes an act of illegal termination of another
6 person's life. And the accent is on "illegal"?
7 A. That's no doubt about that. I answered that -- by Mr. Misetic
8 yesterday. We use the term in a context which is not strictly legal
9 discourse. I repeat, this report was not meant to be a report for a
10 judicial institution.
11 On the other hand, our understanding was that it went exclusively
12 for people who were unlawfully killed. We did not deal with the loss of
13 life during the military action. If that happened, we noted it as such,
14 and in that case, certainly the word "murder" was not used.
15 Q. But I presume you will agree with me, Professor Puhovski, that
16 attribution of an unlawful act in the term "murder" by nature, would
17 follow from a forensic process or some other process that would determine
18 that this was so, and this is not something that would be prima vista --
19 be obvious to somebody who has no forensic training?
20 A. There's no dispute about that. We did not use the term in its
21 legal sense, although if you take a look at the description carefully, in
22 many cases, it corresponds to the technical or legal sense of the word,
23 but this term, I repeat, was used in colloquial sense of the word and not
24 strictly legal or technical sense of it.
25 Q. In your statement - and that would be?
Page 16145
1 MR. MIKULICIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
2 Q. In your 2007 statement, which is P2316, MFI, in paragraph 10, you
3 state that in mid-August 1995, you were briefly visiting Knin.
4 Please tell me, was that your only visit to the Sector South that
5 -- the area that the indictment deals with, that visit from mid-August
6 1995?
7 A. My statement was in 2007. It says here in the transcript 1997.
8 Q. Well, could be my mistake or a typo.
9 A. I visited Knin only once in that period, as late as December 1995
10 for an hour or two, en route to somewhere else, and that was a period
11 when we were engaged in -- in our first review of the area, and I was
12 there for a couple of hours.
13 Q. In paragraph 11 of this statement, you say that your impression
14 was that the police did not function properly, and you corroborated that
15 by the fact that during your journeys, despite the presence of
16 check-points in the territory, you were never stopped or questioned about
17 what was -- what you were doing there.
18 Professor Puhovski, had you been stopped and questioned, would
19 this argumento a contrario mean that you were denied access to the area,
20 which was the subject of the activities of the Croatian Helsinki
21 Committee?
22 A. I cannot speak as an expert. It seemed logical to me that it --
23 that each person passing there would have to be stopped and questioned.
24 I had a letter explaining my mission there. It was in the glove
25 compartment of my car, but I didn't reach for it even once because nobody
Page 16146
1 asked me to show any kind of document. I encountered two policemen that
2 I knew -- sorry, not policemen, soldiers. They just waved me through. I
3 presumed that they recognised me. Both were my students. But this not
4 seem professional control over territory, in my view, and these were not
5 my journeys, just one single journey when I was passing through these
6 places that this happened to me.
7 Q. Professor Puhovski, without false modesty, then and now, you are
8 a public figure and easily recognizable throughout Croatia. Is it not
9 the case?
10 A. Yes. I was a public figure, but I was not popular, as it were.
11 I was not focus of much public love. I was a bit hated, rather being
12 loved by the public.
13 Q. When, in your testimony, you discuss the facts indicated by the
14 HHO's report, on several occasions you stated that that report was
15 publicised, was sent to more than 300 addressees, and that you never
16 received any refutals of the facts listed in that report.
17 Do you think, Professor Puhovski, that absence of refutal may
18 lead us to conclude that the facts contained in the report are credible?
19 A. There was a refutal by the minister of the interior and minister
20 of the justice, but we proved them wrong. They claimed that one person
21 from the list of casualties was alive. We did not find that they were
22 right, but this prompted us to report -- to publish this report as a
23 book, because two years had passed since its publication in the
24 photocopied form, and we believed that those two years were ample time
25 for all the reactions and feedback. Reactions were negative, but they
Page 16147
1 were of an ideological nature. We were claimed to be Serbian mercenaries
2 or the servants of an international Jewish conspiracy but nobody disputed
3 the facts.
4 Q. Let's take a look at an example, much exploited at the time and
5 still, and it concerns the incidents at the village of Grubori
6 no, correction. 4674, on page 54 in the English version or page 56 in
7 Croatian. What is discussed is that in the village of Grubori
8 identified as Milos Grubor was shot behind his ear, and then I will quote
9 part of that report.
10 "Further on there was another house with a body on the floor in a
11 room. We could not see who it was (Ivo Grubor born 1930, note PM)" I
12 assume that stands for Petar Mrkalj. These are his initials.
13 A. That's correct.
14 Q. "The person talking to us said that he had brought the body
15 during the afternoon while we were not there. When he turned the body
16 over, the scene was horrible."
17 A. I'm being shown the wrong page.
18 In the e-court version, that would be page 54; and in the printed
19 book, 53; English version 56.
20 Q. So on the right-hand side of the screen, you have the right page.
21 And the last sentence of this paragraph that I'm quoting is:
22 "His throat was slashed in two."
23 Furthermore it is stated:
24 "Inhabitants of Grubori were killed by members of the special
25 place, and for that reason until today the Republic of Croatia
Page 16148
1 recognised this grave incident, has not investigated it, and has not
2 provided answers to queries."
3 In footnote number 48, there is reference to Alun Roberts, UN
4 spokesperson in his interview to the Voice of America on the 11th of
5 September, 1995, as your source.
6 Mr. Puhovski, you are familiar with the incidents in the village
7 of Grubori?
8 A. It is.
9 Q. Is it known to you that because of the incident in the village of
10 Grubori investigation has been initiated, that it's still ongoing, and
11 that it has not been possible to identify the immediate perpetrators of
12 this incident if it were a crime or criminal offence?
13 A. It seemed to us that the description of facts could correspond to
14 a description of a criminal offence, but let the judiciary deal with
15 that.
16 We found about that when Mr. Bajic became state prosecutor
17 general, 15 years after the fact. While we were preparing this report,
18 we did not know that an investigation had been initiated because we were
19 not given any information to that effect.
20 Q. Professor Puhovski, let me acquaint with you one fact.
21 Before this Trial Chamber a Mr. Zganger testified who, at the
22 critical time, was a prosecutor in Sibenik. And it was within his
23 jurisdiction that the investigation into this crime took place. He
24 testified here and told us that an investigation was launched and that
25 there were great difficulties. But we will get back to that later.
Page 16149
1 Mr. Puhovski, look at this quotation which I think has to be
2 attributed to Alun Roberts which says that he was presented when the
3 inhabitants of the village of Grubori
4 body, turned it over, brought it out from the field into the house. Will
5 you agree with me that this sort of conduct, to say the least, does not
6 contribute to the establishment of facts and traces on the ground.
7 MS. FROLICH: [Previous translation continues] ...
8 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich.
9 MS. FROLICH: I think it is inaccurate to say that Mr. Roberts
10 said that was present when people manipulated bodies. That is not what
11 the quote says.
12 JUDGE ORIE: If there is any doubt as to whether a quote is
13 accurately summarized, you're invited, Mr. Mikulicic, as usual, to put
14 exactly to the witness what you refer to.
15 MR. MIKULICIC: I understand, Your Honour. I will quote the
16 sentence which begins after the brackets and it says:
17 "[Interpretation] The man who spoke with us told us that he had
18 brought the body over in the course of the afternoon while we were not
19 there. When he turned the body over, the scene was horrific. His throat
20 had been splashed in two."
21 Footnote 48 Alun Roberts, the UN spokesperson in Glas America
22 Voice of America
23 Perhaps I'm mistaken, but my conclusion is that the quotation is
24 to be attributed to Mr. Alun Roberts.
25 Would you agree with me, Mr. Puhovski?
Page 16150
1 A. There is no doubt about the fact that this is something that
2 Mr. Alun Roberts said. Let me go back to your earlier question. There
3 were dozens of cases where individuals removed bodies to other locations.
4 I heard audiotapes of people saying we placed the grandma on the bed to
5 make it more comfortable for her. Of course, the grandma was dead.
6 These were traditional customs. People were not used to having
7 individuals and in violent death. People died of natural causes there.
8 Throughout the war, the ethnic Serb population fully mistrusted the
9 Croatian authorities. They did not expect anyone to show up and even
10 less to show up and behave properly. I'm telling you that there were
11 certain reasons there, there was idealogy there, but there were also some
12 expectations on their part. Even those who knew something about it or
13 who didn't know anything about it did not think it necessary to wait for
14 the professionals, for the forensic officers to arrive, for the policemen
15 to arrive. They simply wanted to put the -- sort things out, to get in
16 touch with the relatives, and to get in touch with an institution. And
17 most often that was the Helsinki Committee.
18 Q. Thank you, Mr. Puhovski. On the issue of the atmosphere that was
19 pervasive in what was formerly in the Republic of Serbian Krajina
20 their attitude toward the Croatian authorities, this is something that we
21 will get back to later.
22 What is being described here is a very, very ugly fact which is
23 that Mr. Jovo Grubor was killed and that he met his death by having had
24 his throat cut in two.
25 Similarly we were able to see a video, P2321, where the same
Page 16151
1 statement was made by General Forand, who was commander of Sector South.
2 This assertion that a man has had his throat cut found its way into the
3 UN report and into the report of the HHO. And I will put the following
4 question to you, Mr. Puhovski.
5 Let us first see on our screens the dead body of Jovo Grubor.
6 This is the photograph which is part of D1245.
7 While we're waiting for the photograph to appear, let me tell you
8 that Dr. Clark appeared here as an expert witness for the Prosecution,
9 and he gave his expert findings here. He is a pathologist, who was
10 present when a number of dead bodies that were exhumed in the area of
11 Sector South were autopsied. He, himself, produced an autopsy report for
12 Mr. Jovo Grubor. It is beyond doubt, he explained to the Trial Chamber
13 here, that's at transcript page 14278, line 23, through to 14281, that a
14 wound could that be observed on the neck of the body of Mr. Jovo Grubor
15 does not originate from a wound -- from a -- from a knife.
16 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter's correction.
17 MR. MIKULICIC:
18 Q. [Interpretation] [Previous translation continues] ... but from a
19 bullet which is the source of the wound.
20 Were you ever aware of this?
21 A. No. I told your learned friend yesterday that on several
22 occasions it so happened that the individuals would exaggerate the state
23 in which the dead body was, and this was down to the shock and not much
24 more. We did not have other possibilities than to publicise the
25 information which was confirmed by two independent reports. This was
Page 16152
1 information that was gathered by internationals who should have been
2 professionals. It was not the case that a niece found the body of
3 Mr. Jovo Grubor, and then she could be justified in exaggerating the
4 condition in which the body was, which is something that we come across
5 quite often. These were officers, and we had no reason to doubt what
6 they said. This is all can I tell you in our defence. Now, when it
7 comes to this story about it actually being a bullet rather than a knife,
8 this is something that I was not aware of.
9 Q. Mr. Puhovski, let's be quite clear. You're not a position to
10 state anything in your defence or in the defence of the Croatian Helsinki
11 Committee. We're simply speaking about the facts here.
12 A. And I'm trying to clarify them.
13 Q. Similarly in your evidence so far you spoke of the issue of
14 evacuation. I want to refer you to part of the report of the HHO,
15 specifically page 15 of the Croatian version and 16 of the English
16 version in e-court, and that's page 14 of the printed version.
17 There, the statement of Nedelijka Draca is reported, who said
18 that the information for evacuation was received by the population on the
19 2nd, and what is meant, of course, is the month of August, and the order
20 to pack was received on the evening of the 3rd August. She goes on to
21 say that on the 4th of August, in the morning, people started moving out
22 in the direction of Donji Lapac. That's when the exodus started.
23 You, the HHO activists, based on your fieldwork came to conclude
24 that the evacuation of the Serb population was both organised an ordered.
25 Is that right?
Page 16153
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. In the next paragraph, Mrs. Draca said that the people were
3 notified by our leadership, and she is referring to the leadership of the
4 Republic of Serbian
5 the Croatian army. We had to avoid that. Those of us who were not
6 fleeing hid very well to make sure that they did not find us. Otherwise,
7 we would have to be running or else be killed by Serbs. They went from
8 house to house to check if people were indeed leaving.
9 Mr. Puhovski, this fact related to evacuation, was it an
10 exception, or was it something that the HHO activists were able to
11 ascertain in their fieldwork, were things that happened again and again?
12 A. We were able to establish this in a number of locations in Sector
13 South. As far as I know, in Sector North, there were certain areas where
14 the decision to evacuate was sabotaged. Things unfolded differently
15 there.
16 Practically in all the cases known to us in Sector South, this is
17 what things were like.
18 Q. Mr. Puhovski, let me show you a part of the statement on this
19 particular issue, which was given before this Tribunal in the case
20 against Slobodan Milosevic by Djuro Matovina. That's at page 11.000,
21 line 7, where the witness says -- and I will quote it in English.
22 "[In English] Jovan Raskovic's speech was another speech of
23 hatred. Inciting hatred between Serbs and Croats living in that area.
24 Among other things he said, I remember one, he said that there is no
25 future for Serbs in the independent state of Croatia, that another
Page 16154
1 Ustasha government is in power, that if Serbs want autonomy and ask for
2 it, they should have it. And he ended his speech with the words, Serb
3 brothers, see you in Krajina. You will have no happiness in the Ustasha
4 states."
5 [Interpretation] This takes me back to the topic you broached a
6 moment ago, Mr. Puhovski, which is the fear-inducing atmosphere, the aim
7 being to instill fear in the Serbs from the Croatian authorities as an
8 Ustasha authorities, which is something that had been present throughout
9 the duration of the Serbian Krajina.
10 Would you agree with this fact?
11 A. This is, indeed, the truth.
12 Q. For the benefit of the Their Honours, I wish to refer you to the
13 statements given by witnesses Sovilj, Sava Mirkovic, Jovan Vojnovic, and
14 protected witness number 15.
15 With regard to the atmosphere that was systematically being
16 induced by the authorities of the so-called Republic of the Serbian
17 Krajina, there exists another important witness statement of which I will
18 read a paragraph to you, and then ask you to comment upon it.
19 MR. MIKULICIC: [Interpretation] Can I have the registrar's
20 assistance. This is document 1D41-0214.
21 MS. FROLICH: [Previous translation continues] ...
22 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich.
23 MS. FROLICH: I hesitate to rise because I'm sure that foundation
24 has already been laid, and, Mr. Mikulicic, I would like to remind of the
25 procedure of putting other statements to the witness.
Page 16155
1 JUDGE ORIE: May I take it that you have already questioned the
2 witness about what you want to put to him now.
3 MR. MIKULICIC: I did, Your Honour. That is referring to the
4 atmosphere which was prevailed in the Krajina state at those times.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed.
6 MR. MIKULICIC:
7 Q. [Interpretation] What we are about to read now, Mr. Puhovski, is
8 the statement by witness Slobodan Lazarovic. He gave a statement to the
9 OTP investigators in 1999. I am at page 25 of the B/C/S version and page
10 26 of the English version.
11 Allow me to read a paragraph to you.
12 "In 1995, the life in Krajina became even harder for the local
13 population. It seemed as if everyone had gone mad. People felt that
14 they were imprisoned in that back of the beyond without any future. They
15 decided to resolve any dispute they had with arms. A great many people
16 participated in the killings of Croats in 1991 and later. Those who did
17 not saw that the killings were being condoned, tolerated, by the official
18 level. Once there were no Croats left there, violence spread among the
19 Serbs themselves. The problem was further aggravated by the fact that
20 the population was fully militarised. All the men aged between 18 and 65
21 were mobilized, but there were also volunteers who were only 16 years
22 old, and those who were as old as 75. All of them were armed, and the
23 law dictated that they should all wear their uniforms at all times,
24 regardless of whether they were on duty or not."
25 This portion of the statement, Mr. Puhovski, depicts the
Page 16156
1 atmosphere and the situation in the Republic of Serbian Krajina prior to
2 Operation Storm. Will you agree with me that inducing such an atmosphere
3 among the population at large was one of the prerequisites for an
4 evacuation to take place in the days preceding Operation Storm and which
5 was to take place during Operation Storm?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Professor Puhovski, are you aware of the fact - and this is
8 something that the HHO's report speaks of - that the population which
9 fled the Serbian Republic
10 later on to Serbia
11 Yugoslavia
12 parts of motorways were cordoned off in order to provide -- to channel
13 them or funnel them through toward Kosovo.
14 Are you aware of that fact?
15 A. I am aware of that from newspaper articles and primarily from the
16 writings of the institute for -- Fund for Humanitarian Law which
17 primarily dealt with the matter.
18 Q. Thank you for your answer.
19 Let me go back, while we still have the document on the screen,
20 to the following passage of Mr. Lazarovic's statement, and that would be
21 page 27 in the B/C/S version, or page 28 in the English version.
22 He states:
23 "Rumours were spread that the Ustashas would kill all of the
24 civilians, and I am aware of some individuals who actually were tasked
25 with going around to spread rumours to the effect that the Ustashas were
Page 16157
1 slaughtering children. Under such circumstances no one is going to stay
2 around to find out if the rumours are true or not. They are just going
3 to leave. I myself concocted a story of civilians being massacred by the
4 Muslims of the 5th Corps of the BH army in Topuska which got reported on
5 CNN. There was no truth to the story at all."
6 Professor Puhovski, did you actually learn that such false
7 stories were spread to instill fear in the local population?
8 A. Propaganda was spread which was based on lies; but not,
9 unfortunately, always in all cases based on lies.
10 Q. Furthermore, Slobodan Lazarovic on page 28 in the B/C/S and page
11 20 --
12 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... Mr. Mikulicic
13 you are referring to the Slobodan Lazarovic statement. Could you give us
14 a clue as far as numbers are concerned.
15 MR. MIKULICIC: This is an ID, 410190. And I'm referring --
16 that's a translation. And I'm referring to the English version.
17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But this Chamber has no access to --
18 MR. MIKULICIC: Yes. I believe it's on the screen now,
19 Your Honour.
20 JUDGE ORIE: It's on the screen. Yes. Thank you.
21 MR. MIKULICIC: I'm now referring to the page 28 in the B/C/S
22 version, and corresponding page in English version is - let me check.
23 JUDGE ORIE: I was primarily asking because the statement of
24 Mr. Lazarovic has been used at earlier occasions, and I just couldn't
25 find whether [Overlapping speakers] ...
Page 16158
1 MR. MIKULICIC: [Overlapping speakers] ... Indeed, Your Honour.
2 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... It was never tendered and
3 admitted because --
4 MR. MISETIC: That was the subject of our 92 bis motion which was
5 denied, so we are now trying to --
6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That's what I just wanted to get clear again.
7 MR. MISETIC: Yes.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
9 Please proceed.
10 MR. MIKULICIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
11 Q. Allow me another quote.
12 Mr. Lazarovic talks with the OTP investigators and says:
13 "Krajina Serbs in their majority had left before Croatian forces
14 reached them. Most of them went to Bosnia
15 one border crossing into Republika Srpska, the authorities of the
16 Republika Srpska closed that border crossing down and forced the refugees
17 to pay 100 Deutschemarks for crossing over into their territory."
18 Next paragraph:
19 "Given the atmosphere of fear which had been rehashed over the
20 preceding four years, and the tactic of instilling fear which was used
21 after the Croatian offensive had started, very few Serbs were willing to
22 stay in Topusko. People were -- people there were in a state of mass
23 panic, and a number of Serbs shot each other in dispute."
24 On the next page, and I will finish quoting Mr. Lazarovic.
25 "However, when we reached Serbia we were treated as criminals.
Page 16159
1 We were all frisked, our weapons were taken away, and only then were we
2 allowed to continue on your way. But when we entered Serbia we saw that
3 the police had blocked all exits from the motorway. They did so in an
4 attempt to force the refugees to continue towards Kosovo."
5 Professor Puhovski, my question is, following from your
6 testimony. Is it correct that the evacuation plan that had been prepared
7 in the Republic of Serbian Krajina was a continuation of a plan for the
8 refugee citizens of Serb ethnicity to be settled in Kosovo, as a
9 counterweight to the Albanian population of the then Serbian province of
10 Kosovo?
11 A. What I can repeat what I said in public about that, there were
12 two reasons on the part of the Serbian leadership or the then Yugoslav
13 leadership, one was to dismerge the predominantly positive image of
14 Croatia
15 ethnic Serb population to change the ethnic composition of the province
16 of Kosovo, Koseva.
17 MR. MIKULICIC: [Previous translation continues] ... into the
18 evidence, please.
19 MS. FROLICH: I object, Mr. President. The Prosecution has not
20 had a chance to test this evidence in these proceedings, so, therefore,
21 at this stage we would object.
22 MR. MIKULICIC: But this is an official OTP document.
23 MS. FROLICH: Yes. But it was taken for a different proceedings,
24 and we -- we have even statements taken perhaps for the purpose of these
25 proceedings have been MFI
Page 16160
1 object to the admission of this evidence without the evidence of the
2 witness being heard.
3 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Mikulicic, first of all, you have read a part of
4 a statement to the witness and then you asked him something which was --
5 well, to some extent related to it, so this witness testified about his
6 knowledge.
7 Now, under what Rule would you like to have the statement to be
8 admitted into evidence.
9 MR. MIKULICIC: As a corroborative statement to the testifying of
10 present witness, Mr. Puhovski.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But if this is a statement which is prepared
12 for the purposes of the proceedings before this Tribunal, then, of
13 course, if you would have it tendered under Rule 92 bis, that is, without
14 cross-examination, then you know what the requirements are, isn't it?
15 MR. MIKULICIC: Yes, I am aware of it, Your Honour.
16 JUDGE ORIE: And then the Chamber, an application is usually
17 made, and then the Chamber will decide whether the witness should be
18 called for cross-examination, yes or no. We have no attestation from
19 this witness. So, therefore, it looks as if the requirements of
20 Rule 92 bis are not met. And I just inquired, and Mr. Misetic told me,
21 yes, we wanted to have it admitted under Rule 92 bis, and the Chamber
22 denied that.
23 MR. MIKULICIC: That was a different situation at that time. But
24 really I don't want to have an another argument on it. We will try to
25 prepare a motion on it, and then we could have a Trial Chamber's ruling.
Page 16161
1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I will have to dive again into the
2 circumstances which led us at that time to decide as we did.
3 Please proceed.
4 MR. MIKULICIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
5 JUDGE ORIE: Of course, there is another matter, the timing.
6 Apparently, you want to have the witness to testify before this Chamber
7 on behalf of the Defence. Now, we have had situations where statements
8 were taken by the Defence during the Prosecution's case, and at some
9 moments there was no disagreement on how to proceed with that. But, of
10 course, the introduction of a 92 bis or a 92 ter at this stage of te
11 proceedings requested by the Defence is ... but I will first have to
12 look again into the earlier decision on the matter.
13 Please proceed.
14 MR. MIKULICIC: Thank you, Your Honour.
15 Q. [Interpretation] Professor Puhovski, I would like to ask you to
16 comment, and while we're waiting for the document to appear, which is
17 3D00-0212, in your testimony and in your statement you said that while
18 the report is being prepared you were not aware that the Croatian
19 authorities were undertaken investigations into incidents that may
20 indicate a commission of a criminal offence.
21 Did you learn later how many cases there were concerning crimes
22 that were committed during or after Operation Storm?
23 A. We received information only when Mr. Bajic became state
24 prosecutor general, and they -- that's information indicated in a large
25 number of cases, but also -- it is indicated that the qualifications of
Page 16162
1 the criminal offence was not war crime.
2 Q. What we see on the screen is a letter by the Croatian public
3 Prosecutor's office to a law firm Mikulicic, Loncaric, Bahun, Topic on
4 criminal offences committed during and after Operation Storm.
5 If we look at page 3 of this document. If you do so, we can see
6 a summary of the number of criminal offences, the number of proceedings,
7 almost 4.000 criminal offences. Then the document discusses how many
8 criminal reports been rejected, how many investigations were ongoing
9 during the preparation of that document, how many charges or indictments
10 were brought. On the next page we have a table stating that almost 2.000
11 judgements were handed down, out of which 1.500 convictions and 180
12 acquittals.
13 Furthermore, it is discussed what were the qualifications of
14 those criminal offences. We can see it is two pages down the road,
15 criminal offences of murder, robbery, rape, and causing fire.
16 Those figures are important, Mr. Puhovski. Did the Croatian
17 Helsinki Committee ever supplement its report on Operation Storm with the
18 data that could be provided by the state prosecutor's office?
19 A. No. Because, at the movement when this was published, in 2001,
20 they could have given that information, but they did not. And I repeat
21 that I received this information a couple of years later, when this book
22 had only been published.
23 MS. FROLICH: [Previous translation continues] ...
24 JUDGE ORIE: Ms. Frolich.
25 MS. FROLICH: No objection, Mr. President.
Page 16163
1 JUDGE ORIE: No objection.
2 MS. FROLICH: No.
3 [Prosecution counsel confer]
4 JUDGE ORIE: If there is no objection, then we should continue.
5 But it is a bit unclear. I was waiting for the translation where
6 Ms. Frolich started to say something. She more or less interrupted the
7 answer of the witness.
8 No objection, not against the question, not against anything.
9 Then let's proceed.
10 MR. MIKULICIC: Yes, Your Honour. I'm just waiting for the
11 number.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That's unclear to me. On the -- that's why
13 I'm reading the transcript. I do not see any tendering on the transcript
14 at this moment. But you tendered this letter?
15 MR. MIKULICIC: No. I tendered the whole document, which --
16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But I mean the one -- let me ...
17 [Trial Chamber and registrar confer]
18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But just to understand fully the document.
19 Let me just have a look.
20 MR. MIKULICIC: Well, Your Honour, if I may of any assistance.
21 It's a ten-page document which contains a cover letter from the Croatian
22 attorney office, and as an attachment, the data referring to the crimes
23 committed within or after the Operation Storm. So it's a --
24 JUDGE ORIE: The letter is from January 2006. By the way, I've
25 got a 11-page document.
Page 16164
1 MR. MIKULICIC: Maybe in English. I counted the Croatian
2 version.
3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Could be a difference.
4 Now, are you tendering this document at this moment. Because I
5 think the witness said - let me check that as well.
6 Got a problem with my system.
7 If you forgive me for one second, Mr. Mikulicic, I have to get
8 the right transcript on my ...
9 Yes. You asked -- first of all, you told the witness that the
10 figures are important, that apparently is your opinion about the
11 importance. Now, you put to the witness an overview of numbers which you
12 received in 2006. The only thing you did is you asked witness whether he
13 considered these figures when the report was written. He said, no,
14 because it wasn't there at that time.
15 Now, what -- how does the chamber have to understand tendering
16 this document for the truth of its content or --
17 MR. MIKULICIC: Yes, Your Honour, absolutely. But this document
18 was not prepared in 2006. This document was --
19 JUDGE ORIE: No, it was sent to you in 2006.
20 MR. MIKULICIC: Yeah.
21 JUDGE ORIE: And let's then have a closer look at the document.
22 MR. MIKULICIC: There is only the portion of a more voluminous
23 document, which is already, I believe, in possession of the Office of the
24 Prosecutor of this fine Tribunal. This is it only a portion of this huge
25 document which is dealing with the criminal offences connected with
Page 16165
1 Bljesak and Oluja operations. So it shows --
2 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... Yes, but what is in the
3 hands of the Prosection is not our concern, Mr. Mikulicic. Our concern
4 is --
5 MR. MIKULICIC: [Overlapping speakers] ...
6 JUDGE ORIE: Our concern is what we are supposed to do with this
7 information, because the witness just said, I wasn't aware of it. Well,
8 now, if we would accept every document where a witness comes and says,
9 I'm not aware of that, to have it then tendered for the truth of the
10 content, that, of course, would be -- well, I would give, I would say,
11 great opportunities to all parties to get everything into evidence. They
12 wish to have in evidence without any -- so, therefore, I'm just inquiring
13 with you the background of this [Overlapping speakers] ...
14 MR. MIKULICIC: [Overlapping speakers] ... Yes, with all due
15 respect, Your Honour, if I may of assistance, the witness said in his
16 testimony that he was not aware that the Croatian authorities has been
17 conducted some investigations on or procedures before the judicial system
18 in Croatia
19 Operation Storm.
20 This document officially delivered by the Croatian attorney
21 office, general attorney office, has established the fact that there has
22 been a lot of these investigations, so that the part of the witness's
23 testimony that he isn't aware is not necessary the fact that we have to
24 combine with -- that there was no such investigation and procedures.
25 So that was my point, just the point of fact that the Chamber
Page 16166
1 could be aware of the numerous procedures that has been undertaken
2 concerning the crimes committed during or after the Operation Storm.
3 JUDGE ORIE: And that's exactly now the point I want to -- I can
4 follow you to the extent that this document contradicts apparently what
5 the witness said.
6 Now, so either of them must be not accurate. Now, if you say,
7 This is the reflection of what is the real truth and, therefore, please
8 accept on the basis of this document, that the witness is not telling us
9 what happened, but that this document tells us what happened, leaving
10 apart a third possibility that neither the witness nor the document tells
11 us what happened. But to say that this is for the accuracy of this
12 document and, of course, I tend to agree with you that these figures are
13 important, to introduce this through this witness may ask for some
14 further consideration.
15 MR. MIKULICIC: Perhaps we may ask the witness whether he is now
16 aware of those proceedings that has been -- that has been introduced
17 after the -- after the Operation Storm has finished.
18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Whether or not that is -- we could ask him.
19 Mr. Puhovski, could you tell us, did you become aware of a large
20 number of prosecutions in relation to offences committed during
21 Operation Storm, after you had written the report?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] As I have already said, I received
23 from Mr. Mladen Bajic, the state prosecutor general, roughly a similar
24 document, and I have no reason to doubt the truthfulness of it. At the
25 time of the drafting and publishing of the report, none of it was
Page 16167
1 information known to either us or the public at large.
2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. But you -- and you said you have no reasons to
3 doubt the figures given. It's not in contradiction with what you learned
4 from other sources. Is that ...
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'll repeat. To my knowledge, the
6 information contained therein is accurate. We were not either primarily
7 or secondarily engaged in trying to find out who was responsible. We
8 wanted to ascertain the facts. We were not able to know anything about
9 these proceedings because they were not referred to in public, save for
10 two or three exceptions, like the Varivode case, and especially not in
11 this summarily way, not until Mr. Mladen Bajic assumed the position of
12 the state prosecutor general.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I'm just trying to also have a look at the
14 document so that I know what exactly, apart from the quoted portions, we
15 find in it.
16 [Trial Chamber confers]
17 JUDGE ORIE: The document being tendered for the truth of its
18 content.
19 Ms. Frolich.
20 MS. FROLICH: Yes. As I said before, there are no objections to
21 the admissibility, but I would just like to draw the Chamber's attention
22 to the -- to the kinds of statistics that are put in this report as well
23 as to the fact that it listed crimes committed linked to the Flash and
24 Storm military operations. It doesn't break down any further recording,
25 for example, exactly what types of proceedings were initiated for
Page 16168
1 Operation Storm, as opposed to Operation Flash, against whom, what type
2 of perpetrator, what ethnicity of perpetrator and victim, et cetera.
3 When these proceedings were initiated all these are relevant factors to
4 be taken into consideration by the Chamber when deciding what weight to
5 attach to this document.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Mikulicic.
7 MR. MIKULICIC: Yes, that could be part of some other document,
8 but as it concerns to this one, I'm only referring to the figures that
9 has been put down by the Attorney General of the Republic of Croatia
10 JUDGE ORIE: The Chamber will have a look at. If it could be
11 marked for identification for the time being, then the Chamber will
12 decide on admission.
13 THE REGISTRAR: Your Honours, this document shall be given
14 Exhibit D1331, marked for identification. Thank you, Your Honours.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Registrar.
16 MR. MIKULICIC: Thank you, Your Honours.
17 Q. [Interpretation] Professor Puhovski, your line of profession
18 strictly speaking is not sociology, is it?
19 A. I'm a professor of philosophy, social -- political sciences and
20 social philosophy.
21 Q. But I do presume that in your line of work you had to deal with
22 certain sociological issues, at least that is how you presented it during
23 your evidence. Is that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Are you familiar with the book by professor Ozren Zunec? He is a
Page 16169
1 professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He refers to a
2 sociological theory. The book is called "The Bare Living." And the
3 theory is that of collective violence.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. When confronted with violence which was evidently present in the
6 wake of Operation Storm, and where evidently a number of criminal
7 offences was committed, Professor Zunec attempted to explain this by
8 employing the theory of collective violence. He said that in certain
9 situations such violence arises as a universal phenomenon. He draws a
10 parallel with the riots in Los Angeles in 1992 where 50.000 people were
11 involved, and where more than 50 persons were killed. He draws a
12 parallel with Kosovo, where, after the intervention of the NATO alliance
13 in 2004, riots erupted where many homes were burned, people killed, many
14 Serbs fled. He also cites the example of France, in 2005, et cetera.
15 Can you tell us what you know of this theory of collective
16 violence and if, in your view, it can be somehow applied to the events in
17 the aftermath of Operation Storm, in the newly liberated areas.
18 A. In the strictly technical term, the theory of collective violence
19 is a subheading of the theory of collective action, although we shouldn't
20 go into great detail now. Recently it has been developed as a
21 theoretical or philosophical approach at defining violence which is
22 connected with the ideological apparata of the state. In other words,
23 the violence which the state or other bodies, but most likely the state
24 induces by creating collective identity which should somehow override
25 individual identity. In other words, to create an atmosphere in which
Page 16170
1 every individual in any times of crisis would automatically side with the
2 collective, regardless of the person's own ideological or political or
3 professional affinities. It is connected to the theory of ethnic
4 nationalism which was developed mostly by some of the British experts and
5 which was used to interpret the events in Northern Ireland. It seems to
6 me that the interpretation advanced by Colleague Zunec, in connection
7 with the local Croatian circumstances, is quite correct, and it does move
8 within the realm of the theory itself and of the reality in Croatia
9 itself.
10 Q. Thank you, Mr. Puhovski. I have no further questions for you.
11 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you, Mr. Mikulicic.
12 It will depend on how many questions you would have, whether we
13 proceed before the break, Ms. Frolich.
14 MS. FROLICH: Yes, thank you, Mr. President. I only have a few
15 questions for the witness. I believe we can finish before the break.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Then please proceed.
17 MS. FROLICH: Thank you, Mr. President.
18 Re-examination by Ms. Frolich:
19 Q. Professor Puhovski, in paragraph 15 of your 2009 statement you
20 mentioned that initially in 1995 and 1996 there was no intent to publish
21 information collected during your fact-finding missions. I'm asking you
22 this: Whose idea was to initiate this project of these fact-finding
23 missions and collection of information in the first place.
24 A. Originally this was the proposal by Mr. Petar Mrkalj, on his
25 return from the first mission of the International Helsinki Federation.
Page 16171
1 Since, at the time, I was the only member of the committee present in
2 Zagreb
3 1995, or in October, I can't remember correctly, when we had enough
4 people for the Plenary session, the Plenary decided that we should embark
5 on the fact-finding mission since it became quite evident at the time
6 that the public was being served one-sided information.
7 Q. Do you know if Mr. Mrkalj was influenced by any external factors
8 or external pressure to go and investigate the alleged incidents in the
9 Krajina region?
10 A. Formally speaking, as deputy president, I dispatched Mr. Mrkalj
11 to Knin, together with representatives of the IHF, so that could have
12 been some sort of pressure. But he could have been influenced by some
13 members of the IHF team. At the time, practically no one outside of the
14 close circle of people knew what was going on, and there could have been
15 no pressure to speak of, since the topic in relation to which pressure
16 was supposed to be exerted was not known to the public. Once the HHO
17 decided as its Plenary that we should be dealing this, we needed further
18 two months to raise funds for that mission, which was initially primarily
19 coming from the Soros Foundation.
20 Q. At the time of the fact-finding missions, were you given any
21 external directions on how to report and what to put emphasis on?
22 A. We discussed this issue solely with representatives of the
23 United Nations in Croatia
24 Helsinki Committee, and with the colleagues from Serbia, who were engaged
25 in similar activities in the human rights committee or the fund for
Page 16172
1 humanitarian law.
2 At the time these were practically the only individuals outside
3 of Croatia
4 methodology.
5 Q. And, lastly, when exactly did you obtain the funding to publish
6 the report, if you could say?
7 A. If you're referring to the publication of the report in the form
8 of the book, I can't tell that, because this transpired at the time when
9 I was not on the committee. In late 1999, when the photocopied version
10 was published, I can tell that when I became president in late 2000, the
11 documentation relevant to the book, this is something that I was privy
12 to.
13 Q. Thank you, Professor Puhovski.
14 MS. FROLICH: That concludes my examination, Mr. President.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Thank you.
16 [Trial Chamber confers]
17 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Puhovski, I don't know whether you are familiar
18 with the issue I will raise in my question, but do you know how houses
19 were defined in the 1991 census? Because what we have seen here
20 apparently is that there are reports about many more houses observed for
21 the purposes of whether they were damaged or not; and, at the same time,
22 we see in the 1991 census that not that number of houses apparently have
23 been establish to exist in 1991.
24 Are you aware of how houses were defined in the 1991 census? If
25 they were defined as such.
Page 16173
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I can only give you an indirect
2 answer. I know for a fact that in the 1981 census, the following
3 formulation was used: Family house and the attendant farm buildings or
4 outbuildings.
5 As far as I know, that was the premise from which the census was
6 made in 1981 because at the time I was involved in the process to a
7 certain degree.
8 I don't know how this was done in 1991. It is quite possible
9 that the same methodology was applied. Let me only note that the census
10 was made at the time when Yugoslavia
11 probably whatever methodology was used, it was not applied properly.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Now, if you say, "family houses and the attendant
13 farm buildings or outbuildings," I --
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] 1981.
15 JUDGE ORIE: I am familiar myself with a situation where, for
16 example, in the countryside a family is living and when the parents grow
17 older, either the parents move out and live on the same yard, let's say,
18 within a distance of anything between 10 and 50 metres, create their own
19 house; or that the children move out of the parental house and live,
20 although nearby, a similar distance, and don't criticise me for whether
21 it should be 50, 70 metres, but just close to the parents.
22 Under the 1981 census such a situation where two generations
23 would live in the same -- more or less on the same farm yard, to say so,
24 would that be one house or to houses?
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The answer depends on how many
Page 16174
1 house numbers they were allocated. In the countryside they would have
2 old numbering systems. They wouldn't have individual house numbers, but
3 the entire village would have a number.
4 Now, if there was one house number that referred to a given yard,
5 in a given village, then that was normally considered to be one
6 household. This is something that I know from the 1981 census, though.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. And whether that was still was valid in 1991,
8 you just don't know.
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know. That was my question
10 to you.
11 Any need for further questions?
12 Then, Mr. Puhovski, this concludes your testimony in this court.
13 I'd like to thank you very much for not only for coming to The Hague
14 for answering the questions put to you by the Bench and by the parties
15 but also for your patience and even for re-scheduling your return home,
16 and I hope that everything with your return this afternoon goes well.
17 Thank you.
18 Would you please follow Madam Usher.
19 [The witness withdrew]
20 [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]
21 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Misetic.
22 MR. MISETIC: Just for the record, we have been advised by the
23 Ms. Frolich that the OTP has no objection to our bar table for this
24 witness so ...
25 JUDGE ORIE: Then the registrar is invited to provisionally
Page 16175
1 assign numbers to them so that the Chamber can decide on admission.
2 The Chamber has decided and puts on the record that the
3 application for videolink for Witness 82 is granted. Reasons to follow,
4 but it is important that preparations can start for the videolink.
5 I have one question for you, Mr. Mikulicic, in relation to the
6 data that was sent to you in February 2006.
7 The cover letter says something about reports of -- of
8 prosecutors. Because from the cover letter I take it that one of your
9 specific questions was, Have there been cases in proceedings in cases of
10 persons who, according to the indictment, were killed. So that is a far
11 more individualized question than we see from this answer.
12 Now, in the letter, I read that what is sent to you is the report
13 submitted to the government and to the president of Croatia on the
14 numbers, and it's added the records are fragmentary because of fully
15 defined methodology of recording was never agreed on, and it says we are
16 forwarding both or data and the from other sources in the hope that you
17 will find this useful for the proceedings. And then a warning follows
18 that the data are cumulative and that the breakdown would require insight
19 in all the documents.
20 Then it says in your letter, you included the list of persons who
21 were killed, as alleged in the amended indictment, and that your request
22 to be provided with data you could use to establish a collection. Then
23 it says that this list was forwarded to all public prosecutors, and that
24 you are sent copies of the reports submitted by them.
25 Now, the document you seek to tender into evidence, that's a
Page 16176
1 cover letter and a report, what is attached to the cover letter? Is that
2 all the information you received in the response to your request? Or
3 have you made a selection? For example, one of the things that might be
4 interesting is to see how the prosecutor's report on proceedings in cases
5 where the alleged victim appears in the indictment. That might be quite
6 interesting information.
7 Have you received that? Have you made a selection on what you
8 attached to this letter? Or is it everything you received?
9 MR. MIKULICIC: Well, there are a lot of questions.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, there are.
11 MR. MIKULICIC: I will try to answer them.
12 First, what is attached to this cover letter is only part of the
13 documents that I have received from the attorney general's office.
14 Second, I only partially received the answer to my questions,
15 whether it refers to the connection with a annexed list of the murdered
16 victims during and after the operation Storm. This was -- this type of
17 arrangement has never been completed, not today.
18 So I just, for the purposes of that witness, compose the document
19 of 10 or 11 pages, whatever version he is counting on and try to
20 establish the fact that there was a huge number of the criminal
21 proceedings carrying on after the Operation Storm. That was my whole
22 purpose, just to inform the Chamber that the Croatian government has been
23 taking the steps, trying to prosecute the alleged perpetrators of these
24 crimes.
25 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. At the same time, it's not limited to Storm
Page 16177
1 and aftermath, or is it?
2 MR. MIKULICIC: Well, if you look at the second page of the
3 document, then it is written that these are the crimes committed in
4 connections with the operation Bljesak and Oluja.
5 JUDGE ORIE: So it is not limited --
6 MR. MIKULICIC: It is not limited.
7 JUDGE ORIE: [Previous translation continues] ... to Storm.
8 MR. MIKULICIC: No.
9 JUDGE ORIE: And for that purpose, what is to be linked to Storm
10 and what is to be linked to Flash is not to be -- cannot be deduced from
11 this document, unless we look perhaps at the areas which we find in one
12 of the later pages.
13 MR. MIKULICIC: Yes. Maybe I could, later on, provide a more
14 precise document. But the purpose of this one is just to shown up the
15 attitude of the Croatian government, and that is to prosecute the
16 perpetrators of the alleged crimes.
17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Did in the other responses, does it appear
18 anywhere that one of the names you gave that proceedings were instituted
19 in that specific case?
20 MR. MIKULICIC: Your Honour, quite frankly that was three years
21 ago, and I should made an additional inquiry on that topic. I cannot say
22 at the top of my head. But I believe, yes, at least some of them.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I fully agree, it's three years ago. The
24 Chamber will further consider the matter. We will first have a break.
25 Mr. Hedaraly, you don't wanted us to have a break.
Page 16178
1 MR. HEDARALY: I can't leave, Mr. President, so maybe I can go to
2 a longer. I just wanted to inform the Chamber that the next witness, I
3 won't name him because we don't know, he has arrived. He is at his
4 hotel. We have been re-informed by VWU that if we wanted to start his
5 testimony, they could make him available in the last session. The
6 Prosecution is ready to proceed, so it is up to the Chamber. We just
7 wanted to inform the Chamber.
8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. I think there was an outstanding MFI list to
9 be dealt with. And since everything did his homework, I take it, perhaps
10 we should spend -- rather than rush the witness into this courtroom. He
11 arrived today?
12 MR. HEDARALY: He arrived early this morning.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Perhaps that is another reason perhaps not to
14 start for just half an hour, and spend time on the MFI list.
15 [Trial Chamber confers]
16 JUDGE ORIE: The Chamber, under the present circumstances,
17 prefers to spend the remaining time today on the MFI list.
18 We would like to see you back at 1.00.
19 --- Recess taken at 12.39 p.m.
20 --- On resuming at 1.02 p.m.
21 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Mikulicic, [Overlapping speakers] ... you're on
22 your feet, I was informed that Ms. Higgins would like to address the
23 Chamber. But that is related to our MFI list.
24 MS. HIGGINS: Your Honour, it was related to a question that you
25 asked me on Friday concerning Mr. Puhovski, and I wanted to put the
Page 16179
1 answer on the record so that Your Honours have it.
2 Your Honour asked me the question in relation to how many
3 individuals those four tables actually covered in the entirety. We have
4 done a check, and they related to 32 individuals in total which I hope
5 satisfies Your Honour.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
7 MS. HIGGINS: The second point, if I may, Your Honour, and I
8 understand that you may wish to allot a different time-slot for this part
9 of my intended submission. I know that Your Honours have to decided upon
10 the admissibility of Mr. Puhovski's report. And there are certain
11 factors which have emerged through his testimony that I would, at some
12 stage, seek to address Your Honours on, and perhaps now is not the best
13 occasion given the task ahead. But before Your Honours make a decision
14 on admissibility, I would ask that you here me briefly in respect of
15 eight or nine or summary points that we would ask you take into account
16 before making that decision.
17 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
18 [Trial Chamber confers]
19 JUDGE ORIE: The Chamber has decided to postpone its decision on
20 admission until after the testimony. Of course, then what emerges during
21 the testimony is relevant to consider. So, therefore, you will get a
22 opportunity, although not at this moment.
23 MS. HIGGINS: I'm grateful.
24 JUDGE ORIE: Mr. Mikulicic.
25 MR. MIKULICIC: Yes, Your Honour, very briefly. Since we have
Page 16180
1 been informed that videolink for the Witness 82 has been granted, it will
2 be my request to be present on the side -- I mean, on the other side of
3 the videolink while this witness will be testifying in UN premises in
4 Zagreb
5 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That's -- are there any specific reasons for
6 that apart from, of course, that to be there, but it's at least an
7 uncommon request, and the Chamber remembers that there were some -- some
8 vague matters that the witness had reason to, et cetera, which was then
9 not further specified. But your request is there. If the Chamber would
10 need further information for the reasons apart from that, of course,
11 that's -- I can imagine that -- it has been in literature, it has been a
12 long-standing question on if there is an videolink, who should be on what
13 side. That's -- I'm aware of that legal -- on the legal articles written
14 on that matter, if not on that matter alone.
15 Mr. Hedaraly.
16 MR. HEDARALY: Just on that point, Your Honour, I think there is
17 also a distinction between being present and whether Mr. Mikulicic
18 intends to conduct his cross-examination from the office there, in which
19 case, of course, the Prosecution would seek as well to be present and
20 that may not be the most practical solution.
21 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... Yes, finally the whole
22 truth --
23 MR. MIKULICIC: [Overlapping speakers] ... Well, obviously, I
24 was aiming to my cross-examination, not to be purely present on the site,
25 of course.
Page 16181
1 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We'll consider the matter and also consider
2 whether we need further information, or whether we could decide the
3 matter right away.
4 Then I think we could now move on to the MFI list.
5 I take that the parties have received, I think, the 17th of
6 February, last version. I would try to go through them as quickly as
7 possible.
8 I start with the D numbers. D398. The issue here apparently is
9 that the exhibit, the statement should either be tendered by the Defence
10 as a 92 bis statement or else it should be vacated, the number. And I
11 think that the Gotovina, and the Cermak would confer on the matter and
12 get back to the Chamber.
13 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, this goes back to the issue of the
14 Kosta Novakovic statement. The Chamber has now made a ruling, which I
15 would invite the Chamber to reconsider that we can't do 92 bis
16 submissions on the Prosecution's direct. So I don't know how or if we
17 would be allowed to do a 92 bis motion because it's an OTP statement,
18 because that's the same situation with Novakovic [Overlapping
19 speakers] ... I'm sorry, Lazarevic.
20 MR. HEDARALY: I'm sorry to jump in. I wanted to -- I'm sorry
21 for the interruption, but this is getting a little strange. We submitted
22 that statement pursuant to 92 bis initially. Then based on some
23 information from the Defence, we withdrew it. So we had an attestation
24 for that first statement. It turns out in the course of investigation
25 that we would be willing to resubmit that 92 bis because we have the
Page 16182
1 certification. So if there is no more any objections, we're fine with
2 that.
3 The only item I would like to note is that if we have one
4 statement from this witness admitted, there is another statement, a
5 March 2008 supplemental statement short that is there. That was the
6 Official Note taken by Croatian government about this -- from this
7 witness. So if we're going to admit one statement, we should admit the
8 whole lot. And there were objections to the Official Note, because now
9 we will only have a partial, essentially, version or testimony of the
10 witness. So I think that adds another layer of complication to the
11 issue. The -- initially, the idea was that witness statements would not
12 be admissible. At that time Witness 70 was on the Prosecution witness
13 list. Now the Prosecution will no longer call that witness. But we have
14 no problem with the statement going in through 92 bis, but we would urge
15 that the March 2008 statement and the Official Note as well get admitted
16 because they all deal with similar matters.
17 MR. MISETIC: Mr. President, if I may respond to that. Here's
18 the situation. As Mr. Hedaraly correctly states, when we tendered this
19 statement, it is with the understanding that the witness was coming later
20 because the witness was on the Prosecution's witness list and could make
21 the 92 ter attestations with respect to the statement.
22 Mr. Hedaraly is incorrect, however, in saying that if we tender
23 the statement for one purpose, that all statements of the witness
24 automatically should come into evidence. The situation here is quite
25 simple. This witness had testimony with respect to two incidents. One
Page 16183
1 of the incidents was related, the Court will recall, to the Sava Djuric
2 the person whose son and wife testified in this case, who allegedly had
3 been burned alive in his house. We tendered it this statement because
4 this statement dealt with that killing incident which is a killing
5 incident in the indictment. She has given a subsequent statement which
6 deals with the events in Grubori, which is obviously something that other
7 Defence teams would have the right to cross-examine on.
8 MR. HEDARALY: That is incorrect, Mr. Misetic. That statement
9 refers to both to Grubori and -- [Overlapping speakers] ...
10 MR. MIKULICIC: Well, to the extent that it does, clearly the
11 subsequent statement have more to do with Grubori and the Defence --
12 MR. HEDARALY: That is also incorrect.
13 JUDGE ORIE: Is that vital for our discussion, whether it -- what
14 the balance is in the second statement?
15 MR. HEDARALY: Well, it is to an extent, Your Honour, in that,
16 first of all, the statement was tendered and MFIed because a witness was
17 anticipating to be called. But if the issue then during Mile Djuric's
18 testimony which is when it happened, and later on Milica Djuric's
19 testimony, the issue was to the extent it relates impeachment of the
20 witness that was here, Mr. Misetic read out on the record the portions
21 that he was using to contradict the witness. So in the sense for the
22 purpose of impeachment, that is already on the record. It is already
23 there.
24 Now what we're talking about is admitting the statement which was
25 taken for the purpose of this Tribunal which can only be done under the
Page 16184
1 rules, 92 bis, 92 ter, 92 quater, which is what brings us here. And what
2 I'm saying is that if we are going to accept 92 bis submission of one
3 witness of one witness statement, when there's another statement dealing
4 with similar issues correcting the first statement, clarifying the first
5 statement, it doesn't seem to be assisting the Court to only have a
6 portion of that story.
7 MR. MISETIC: Your Honour, I think can I simplify this.
8 Mr. Hedaraly if his position is that, for purposes of impeachment,
9 reading out the portion is sufficient for us to rely on for purposes of
10 impeachment, I'm perfectly happy with that. We will withdraw D398. And
11 that's all I intended it for anyway, so that will short-circuit the
12 entire debate.
13 JUDGE ORIE: So, therefore, then D398 shall be vacated and will
14 not tendered as a 92 bis statement by any of the Defence teams, and this
15 after -- because that is where we ended the last time after the Gotovina
16 and Cermak Defence had conferred, and I take it --
17 MR. MISETIC: With the caveat, again, Mr. President, based on
18 Mr. Hedaraly's representation that can I use the read-out portion as
19 impeachment of what -- I can't remember the son's name now, but who came
20 here and testified which is when I tendered the exhibit. I think it is
21 Mile Djuric, if I'm not mistaken.
22 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, of course, the weight to be given to all that
23 is still to be considered by the Chamber, as long as that is clear --
24 MR. MISETIC: That's fine, but I --
25 JUDGE ORIE: Because whether we believe the one statement or the
Page 16185
1 other. But it's clear that it has been put to that witness, and that for
2 the purposes of seeking to establish that he was not telling the truth.
3 MR. MISETIC: Yes, thank you, Mr. President.
4 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, but whether or not that was the case, is still
5 to be considered.
6 Well, if we take that long for every item, then -- but 398 is
7 from our list.
8 D568 is not a matter we can deal with at this very moment.
9 Then the next one is D1079. There was an issue that the
10 Prosecution would like to have a look at the request that was sent by the
11 Markac Defence and see whether, on the basis of knowledge of this
12 document whether there were any objections to admission.
13 First of all, did you receive the request as sent by -- I think
14 it was by Markac Defence, Mr. Mikulicic.
15 MR. HEDARALY: We did receive it, and we have no objection.
16 JUDGE ORIE: No objections.
17 Then D1079 is admitted into evidence. And it may be -- and I
18 think -- was it -- now was that last line taken out, or was it not?
19 Mr. Mikulicic, if you could --
20 MR. MIKULICIC: I believe it was taken out, Your Honour.
21 JUDGE ORIE: I think it was taken out, yes. And I just wanted to
22 make clear that the Chamber earlier expressed hesitations about that last
23 line of this letter.
24 Then we move on to D1083.
25 Mr. Mikulicic, the issue was translation. Have you received a
Page 16186
1 final translation?
2 MR. MIKULICIC: Unfortunately, I did not, Your Honour, for the
3 moment.
4 JUDGE ORIE: So we have to wait.
5 MR. MIKULICIC: We have to wait --
6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Despite our need to proceed, we should behave
7 disciplined, and that's on my mind often.
8 That means that D1083 stays on our list.
9 D1212 is not a matter we'll deal with at this very moment.
10 D1285. I think that this document is now uploaded, both the
11 exhibit and the translation, but, Mr. Misetic, is that the final version
12 that is it now uploaded?
13 MR. MISETIC: Yes, Mr. President. I am advised it is ready to be
14 admitted.
15 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Any objections?
16 MR. HEDARALY: No objection.
17 JUDGE ORIE: No objection. Then D1285 is admitted into evidence.
18 Then there are a few remaining documents on our list in relation
19 to Witness Puhovski. We'll need a bit more time for that.
20 Let me move to the Prosecution Exhibits.
21 The first one is P482, which is an excerpt from the book by
22 Mr. Gotovina. Prosecution sought ten pages to be admitted; Defence
23 wanted to consider to add pages to that.
24 Is there any agreement, meanwhile, by the parties on how many
25 pages and which pages?
Page 16187
1 MR. HEDARALY: I believe so, Your Honour. We have sent to the --
2 to the Defence the portions of the -- it was an issue with the whole book
3 and the translation. And there was agreement with the Defence that they
4 wanted to the introduction in, and we wanted a few portions there. We
5 sent those to Defence. I think it's just a matter of technically
6 uploading the right pages. But I think there was agreement on the
7 content of the exhibits, so ...
8 MR. MISETIC: Yes, Mr. President. That's correct.
9 JUDGE ORIE: There are no outstanding translation issues in
10 relation to those portions?
11 MR. HEDARALY: No, there are not.
12 JUDGE ORIE: Then, of course, if they're not uploaded at this
13 moment, the Chamber can't decide to admit them into evidence, but if this
14 could be done as quickly as possible so that we can get if from our list.
15 Could I ask -- Mr. Misetic, you're always in court; Mr. Hedaraly
16 is not always in court. Could you inform the Chamber as soon as that has
17 been uploaded with the number, then we will immediately decide to
18 admitted it into evidence.
19 MR. MISETIC: Thank you, Mr. President.
20 JUDGE ORIE: Then we move on to P505, and I have to establish
21 that I can't read my own handwriting anymore.
22 Yes, P505, which was debated at quite some time. The Chamber has
23 decided to admit it into evidence and considers that the objections goes
24 to weight rather than to admissibility.
25 We then move on to P821. That is the transcript of a notebook of
Page 16188
1 Witness Liborius. I think on the 22nd of January, I think an updated
2 translations were reported.
3 MR. HEDARALY: It was just a matter of technically uploading the
4 right translations because there were several languages on the notebook.
5 But that is done now, so it's ready to be admitted.
6 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then P821 is admitted into evidence.
7 We'll not deal, at this very moment, with P1050, P1051, P1057, or
8 P1118. We will also not deal, at this moment, with P1167. Same is true
9 for P1168, P1174, and P1251. I think --
10 MR. HEDARALY: Sorry, Your Honour. My recollection of what
11 happened on 22nd January is for the expert report of Dr. Clark. The
12 Chamber indicated that there were the objections were denied, but the
13 report was not formally admitted into evidence. I thought I had the
14 reference with me. I can find it if --
15 JUDGE ORIE: That's fine. The Chamber is busy drafting a
16 decision on the matter, and that explains why we're not dealing with this
17 matter at this very moment.
18 Then I draw the attention of the parties to an exhibit which is
19 not on the list. It was admitted already; it's P1272.
20 You may remember that P1272, or would even be not even be
21 surprised if you would not remember, but was a target list, at least a
22 list with target types. Then the parties agreed on the system used
23 there, what the X, the Y, and the Zs stand for, and the parties were
24 about to -- I think it was Mr. Russo who wanted to the check on the map
25 whether the plotting was correctly done and to seek then to reach an
Page 16189
1 agreement with the Defence on that, so that the Chamber would have
2 guidance as to the positions of the parties.
3 Now, I think we have not heard of any agreement since then.
4 Mr. Misetic.
5 MR. MISETIC: What has transpired since then, Mr. President, is
6 we're at this moment discussing the matter.
7 Mr. Russo has not objected to the admission of this list but has
8 created and plotted these coordinates on his own map, and in an e-mail we
9 got last night or this morning he says that they're basically similar but
10 he wants to tender his own separate exhibit which has been identified on
11 the exhibit list for tomorrow's witness.
12 We have since then this morning contacted him and indicated that
13 we disagree with some of his plotting, and so we went to court and some
14 of our staff is dealing with Mr. Russo directly to try to work out the
15 coordinates on his map which he intends to tender tomorrow.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. First of all, of course, it would be highly
17 appreciated if the parties could agree on plotting, where they apparently
18 agree on the system coordinates --
19 MR. MISETIC: No. That's not correct.
20 JUDGE ORIE: Then let me just check what --
21 MR. MISETIC: Let me -- I have to say this. I'm not sure if
22 Mr. Russo disagrees with the system that we used to plot the coordinates
23 and thinks there is also another system that can be used, or if we're
24 using the wrong system and he is using the right system. That's what I
25 think the discussion amongst other things is between the parties today
Page 16190
1 before tomorrow's witness arrives.
2 If I could also note for the record that with respect to this
3 specific exhibit, OTP disclosed a better copy of the exhibit which is as
4 you will see, if you can, there were the -- there was blacked out, the
5 first two targets. And OTP has obtained a better copy which is more
6 legible, and I would assume because it was disclosed to us - and this ERN
7 0646-2101 - that OTP will be uploading the better, more legible copy into
8 e-court.
9 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, this seems to be a very technical matter. Of
10 course, the Chamber would highly appreciate if the parties could come to
11 some kind of an agreement. If not, which is imaginable, because there
12 may be different views on systems, the Chamber would appreciate a short
13 submission. And perhaps you could even agree on what such a submission
14 would be to explain clearly what keeps you apart. Because it seems to
15 very technical, rather than anything else. So if there are two systems
16 existing, say one system is the right system in the view of the Defence,
17 the other one -- the difference of the systems is this. So that we know
18 where the problem lies.
19 MR. MISETIC: That is fine, Mr. President. I can tell that you
20 it's my understanding that using either system, you get to the same
21 place. It's just a question of where you round the decimal point.
22 MR. KEHOE: You don't get to the same place. It is really a
23 different system depending on how far you take out the decimal point.
24 JUDGE ORIE: Let's -- where one Defence counsel on the same team
25 says that you get to the same place, whereas the other Defence counsel
Page 16191
1 says -- the same team says that you get to a different place, that seems
2 to be the perfect demonstration of what should be done out of court.
3 That is to, first of all, agree within the team and then preferably also
4 with the Prosecution.
5 And then if there is no agreement, we'd like to hear exactly why
6 there is no agreement.
7 Then we move on. We leave P1272 behind us.
8 P1291 and P1292, the Chamber is not yet ready to deal with that.
9 MR. HEDARALY: Sorry, Your Honour.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes.
11 MR. HEDARALY: On that note if you remember during the
12 examination of Mr. Hansen, there was also P1293 which was the map that
13 was marked by the witness. Then later on he marked in court --
14 JUDGE ORIE: I was about to come to P1293, as a matter of fact.
15 MR. HEDARALY: Oh.
16 JUDGE ORIE: And I would say that -- that P1293, at the time, was
17 vacated, because it was supposed to be replaced by P1298, whereas, since
18 then, I understand the Prosecution became aware that some details would
19 be lost, and, therefore, seeks to re-tender P1293, in order not to be
20 prejudiced by the loss of some details.
21 MR. HEDARALY: That is correct. And just so that Mr. Registrar
22 knows it is 65 ter 7005, since the P number now doesn't show anything.
23 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Any objections against the re-admission of
24 P1293?
25 MR. HEDARALY: It --
Page 16192
1 JUDGE ORIE: [Overlapping speakers] ... supposed to be the same
2 map, but --
3 MR. HEDARALY: The markings made by the witness with the circles
4 above the areas in the statement, and it was one circle that was lost by
5 zooming in to identify the additional house.
6 MR. KEHOE: Mr. President, we don't have any objection. And I do
7 recall this map. This is a map that he --
8 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. No objection.
9 MR. KEHOE: No objection.
10 JUDGE ORIE: Then P1239 is now assigned to 65 ter 7005. It is
11 tendered again and is admitted into evidence.
12 Then we move on to P1295. This was a bar table document, and the
13 Defence was seeking additional time to review this document as a result
14 of that.
15 Any objections against the submission of P1295?
16 MR. KEHOE: Mr. President, frankly at this point it's been a
17 while since that, and I didn't know this was back on, this listing on
18 Mr. Hansen.
19 MR. HEDARALY: I'm sorry, Your Honour, but that -- not at the
20 same time.
21 JUDGE ORIE: Please proceed, Mr. Hedaraly.
22 MR. HEDARALY: And I apologise to Madam transcriber and
23 Mr. Kehoe. It was -- there were three or four documents, and Mr. Kehoe
24 indicated he wanted until Monday. It was a Friday on the 26th, so my
25 impression was that since we haven't heard anything, there were no
Page 16193
1 objections, but now to ask for further time seems a little --
2 JUDGE ORIE: I'm just verifying that. And it was -- it was at
3 transcript pages 14950, and that was Mr. Hansen. We're talking about the
4 23rd of January. It was tendered across the bar table, and it was, at
5 that time said, that you would make up your mind within a week.
6 MR. KEHOE: Yes, Mr. President. I think I indicated one of your
7 court officers had asked me about this document previously, and I had
8 indicated I did not have an objection. I think he had asked me during
9 one of the breaks --
10 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, if that's the case, and there are no other
11 objections, of course, the Chamber itself communicates on these kind of
12 matters in court. But it's clear now, and that it would be valid for
13 P1295, P1296, and P2157. Three --
14 MR. KEHOE: Yes, there were three ECMM reports that I wanted to
15 take a look at.
16 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. The first one, 3rd of August; the second one,
17 3rd of August in relation to the Z-4 plan, and the 3rd, 4th of September,
18 1995.
19 MR. KEHOE: Yes.
20 JUDGE ORIE: No objections.
21 MR. KEHOE: No objections, Mr. President.
22 JUDGE ORIE: Then P1295, P1296, and P2157 are admitted into
23 evidence.
24 Then I move on to P2196 and P2197. The one piece of Croatian
25 legislation, the other one a report by Miroslav Zironic [phoen]. The
Page 16194
1 Chamber understands for this one and also for the next one, P2198, orders
2 issued by Ante Gotovina, that there are no objections against admission
3 and that, therefore, nothing opposes admission.
4 Since I do not hear from any of the Defence teams, these three -
5 that is P2196, P2197, and P2198 - are admitted into evidence.
6 Next one is P2199, order dated the 2nd of August, 1995. This
7 order is a duplicate of a part of D1282, which was used by the Defence in
8 cross-examination. Therefore, under those circumstances, P2199 can be
9 vacated.
10 Then next series of three, P2200, P2201, P2202. As matters stand
11 now, there appear to be no objections, and, therefore, P2200, P2201, and
12 P2202 are admitted into evidence.
13 The next one is P2203. This is a document which was added to the
14 65 ter list through a 92 ter application, and I also understand that it
15 is a duplicate of P2215, and then I understand that P2215 will be vacated
16 if this document will be admitted into evidence.
17 MS. FROLICH: That is correct, Mr. President.
18 JUDGE ORIE: Then I think there are no further objections.
19 Therefore, P2203 is admitted into evidence.
20 Next, P2204. It's a summary of a diary entry, and this exhibit
21 is the 22nd of August entry from Mr. Lausic's complete diary, but that
22 diary is already in evidence as P2166.
23 Now, is there any specific reason why you would like to have this
24 as a separate exhibit into evidence?
25 Ms. Frolich.
Page 16195
1 MS. FROLICH: No, Mr. President. Indeed we put it on our list
2 also of duplicates that we would like to vacate.
3 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then P2204 is vacated.
4 Next one, P2205. This is a part P2241, which is a rather lengthy
5 document of 518 pages and not yet translated.
6 Now, I do not know what to expect as far as the translation is
7 concerned, but the Chamber is inclined to admit these several portions
8 and not to wait until 518 pages have all been translated.
9 MS. FROLICH: Mr. President, if this is the document that I have
10 P2205, and this document is 24 pages long, as I see it, and that is the
11 document we wish to tender, so ...
12 JUDGE ORIE: What I said is that you have also tendered P2241.
13 MS. FROLICH: Yes.
14 JUDGE ORIE: And apparently P2205 is just a portion of P2241. So
15 we have --
16 MS. FROLICH: Yes.
17 JUDGE ORIE: If I could be of guidance to you, P2205, P2207,
18 P2238, P2240, P2250, and P2252, are all separate portions of P2241. If,
19 of course, P2241 would finally be translated in full, 518 pages and be
20 admitted, of course, there would be no need to again tender portions,
21 unless there is any specific reason for doing so.
22 MS. FROLICH: First of all, Mr. President, I don't believe that
23 there are in fact actual portions of these -- these exhibits are portions
24 of P2241. There may that be that the contents are nearly identical. And
25 I should have to check if they are in such a way similar so that we do
Page 16196
1 not have to tender them all.
2 JUDGE ORIE: Let's be very practical. There are no objections.
3 We're not going to wait for P2241. And there being no objections, P2205
4 is admitted into evidence.
5 P2206, there are no objections and is, therefore, also is
6 admitted into evidence.
7 P2207 is the same as we discussed before; part of 2241. Although
8 the Prosecution does not yet agree to that, but it will be -- it is
9 admitted into evidence.
10 P2208, there are no objections, is admitted into evidence.
11 P2209. I think this document was used by the Defence in cross,
12 and there was an issue about whether the one document was ...
13 [Trial Chamber and legal officer confer]
14 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. P2209 is a part of P1013. And I think there
15 was an issue about whether it was complete or not. The Chamber has
16 carefully checked, and it seems to be in there completely.
17 MS. FROLICH: Yes, we would like to vacate this document as well.
18 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. P2209 is vacated.
19 Then the next one is one of a long list, that's P2210, which is
20 not on the 65 ter list. I think we earlier asked the Prosecution to make
21 an application for any document not appearing yet on the 65 ter list to
22 have it admitted to that list before we can decide on admission.
23 MS. FROLICH: Yes, Mr. President. It was suggested to us, and I
24 believe that if we -- I can make an oral application at this time for all
25 the outstanding documents that were -- that were to be admitted to the 65
Page 16197
1 ter list that were present on the --
2 JUDGE ORIE: Yes, is that --
3 MS. FROLICH: [Previous translation continues] ... bar table.
4 JUDGE ORIE: Are they all not on the 65 ter list for the same
5 reason? Or do we get a variety of reasons why they should now be
6 admitted, where they earlier were not on that list? Because if we get to
7 a series of reasons why, then, of course, it's -- if you say, This is all
8 material that we received two weeks ago, that's clear. Then the Defence
9 would now how to answer. But if you say, One was, we received it, but we
10 had forgotten about it, and the other was illegible, then, of course, I
11 would rather have it clearly structured in a short written submission to
12 which the Defence could then --
13 MS. FROLICH: That would be more applicable to this situation.
14 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. Then we will not further deal with any of the
15 -- then I just do a few more, but then we have to stop.
16 P2211, P2212, P2213 are all tendered, and there appear to be no
17 objections, so, therefore, all three are admitted into evidence.
18 P2214, not on the 65 ter list.
19 P2215 has been vacated meanwhile. P2216, no objections;
20 therefore, admitted into evidence.
21 P2217, not on the 65 ter list.
22 P2218, tendered, no objections. Admitted into evidence.
23 P2219, up to and including P2222, not on the 65 ter list.
24 P2223 tendered. No objections and admitted into evidence.
25 And then we come to a long list of further --
Page 16198
1 Ms. Frolich.
2 MS. FROLICH: Just a comment. What I have is that P2221 and
3 P2222 were in fact parts of larger 65 ters. P2221 was part of 65 ter
4 3918, and P2222 is in fact duplicate of 65 ter 1869.
5 Therefore, I don't believe there's reason to add them to --
6 because they're already on 65 ter list.
7 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. We'll verify that.
8 We have to stop for the time being. Unfortunately, we were not
9 able to finish the whole list, but we made at least some progress.
10 The Chamber will see when we find time to finish the list. It
11 might be rather soon.
12 Any other urgent matter to be discussed at this moment?
13 Ms. Frolich.
14 MS. FROLICH: Mr. President, I just wanted to make a comment on
15 the video that was part of the bar table submission yesterday discussed
16 in Court that I said I would watch and say if there were any objections.
17 There are no objections to admission, but obviously, we would like to put
18 on the record this is again a journalistic compilation. And there is
19 only narrate, and there is no footage to support narrative's comments as
20 such in the video. We'd just like to submit that for Chamber's
21 consideration.
22 JUDGE ORIE: Yes. That is it all about weight and probative
23 value. We'll consider that.
24 [Trial Chamber confers]
25 JUDGE ORIE: We will adjourn for the day, and we will resume
Page 16199
1 tomorrow morning, 9.00, in Courtroom III.
2 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 1.48 p.m.
3 to be reconvened on Wednesday, the 18th day of
4 February, 2009, at 9.00 a.m.
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